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Pioneer-heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Pavlik Morozov

Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (Pavlik Morozov; November 14, 1918, Gerasimovka, Turin district, Tobolsk province, RSFSR - September 3, 1932, Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, Ural region, RSFSR, USSR) - Soviet schoolboy, student of the Gerasimov school of the Tavdinsky district of the Ural region, in Soviet time who gained fame as a pioneer hero who opposed the kulaks in the person of his father and paid for it with his life.

According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Pavlik Morozov was “the organizer and chairman of the first pioneer detachment in the village. Gerasimovka. Monuments to Pavlik Morozov were erected in many cities and pioneer camps Soviet Union.

Pavel Trofimovich Morozov was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district of the Ural region. His father, Trofim Morozov, became chairman of the village council of his native village. It was a tough time.

Back in 1921, the peasants of Central Russia started a revolt, rebelling against the Bolshevik surplus appropriation, which took away the last grain from the people for the proletarians.

Those of the rebels who survived the battles went to the Urals or were convicted. Someone was shot, someone was amnestied after a few years. Under the amnesty two years later, five people, the Purtov brothers, who played their role in the tragedy of Pavel, also fell.

The boy's father, when Pavlik reached the age of ten, left his wife and children, leaving for another family. This event forced the young Morozov to become the head of the family, taking all the care of his relatives.

Knowing that the power of the Soviets was the only shield for the poor, with the advent of the 1930s, Pavel joined the pioneer organization. At the same time, his father, having taken a leading position in the village council, began to actively cooperate with the kulak elements and the Purtov gang.

Here begins the story of the feat of Pavlik Morozov.

The Purtovs, having organized a gang in the forests, hunted in the vicinity by robbery. Only 20 proven robberies are on their conscience. Also, according to the OGPU, the five brothers were preparing a local coup against the Soviets, relying on special settlers (kulaks). Trofim Morozov provided active assistance to them. The chairman provided them with blank documents, issuing fake certificates of poor condition.

In those years, such certificates were an analogue of a passport and gave the bandits a quiet life and legal residence. According to these documents, the bearer of the paper was considered a peasant of Gerasimovka and did not owe anything to the state. Pavel, who fully and sincerely supported the Bolsheviks, reported his father's deeds to the competent authorities. His father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years.

Pavlik paid for this report by losing his life, and his younger brother Fyodor was deprived of his life. While picking berries in the forest, they were slaughtered by their own relatives. At the end of the investigation, four were convicted for the murder: Sergei Morozov - paternal grandfather, Ksenia Morozova - grandmother, Danila Morozov - cousin, Arseny Kulukanov - Pavel's godfather and his uncle.

Kulukanov and Danila were shot, grandparents died in custody. The fifth suspect, Arseniy Silin, was acquitted.

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The name of this 13-year-old boy has become a symbol twice. First - a symbol of the struggle of the pioneer heroes with the "counter-revolution" and "kulaks". Then - a symbol of betrayal, denunciation and meanness.

The paradox is that neither one nor the other interpretation has practically nothing to do with true history Pavlik Morozov. A teenager who simply took care of his mother and younger brothers and was not afraid to speak the truth, even on pain of death.

The Ural schoolboy Pavlik Morozov today, as a rule, is mentioned in a humorous or condemning context. Everyone seems to know that he “surrendered his father”, “wrote a denunciation”, but at the same time no one remembers the details of the case itself.

Soviet propaganda instantly elevated Pavlik to a pedestal as a pioneer hero. In modern times, with the same fervor and the same haste, he was branded as a traitor.

In both cases, the boy's name was used as a political slogan. The real background of those September events of 1932 has long been forgotten.

Only "whistleblowers" greedy for sensations periodically try to give a new interpretation of old events.

But it was all pretty simple.

village corruption

Pavlik Morozov was born a year after the October Revolution, on November 14, 1918. His childhood fell on the most difficult time - the first years of formation Soviet power.

The most severe blow of the transition period - civil war and the ensuing war communism - it was the peasants who took over.

Along with everyone else, the inhabitants of the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province, endured hardships. There, in the family of the chairman of the local village council, Pavel was born - the eldest of the five children of Trofim and Tatyana Morozov. They lived non-peacefully: the father often beat both the mother and the children. Not because he was too harsh in character, but simply such were the usual village customs of that time.

But also a good man Trofim Morozov, with all the desire, could not be named. He eventually abandoned his family and began to live with his mistress in the neighborhood. Moreover, he did not stop beating his wife and children. And he actively used his position as chairman of the village council for personal enrichment. For example, he appropriated the property confiscated from the dispossessed.

A separate source of income for him was the issuance of illegal certificates to special settlers. This category of citizens appeared in the early 1930s, when “kulaks” and “sub-kulakists” were sent to special settlements without trial or investigation. There they had to live in the position of exiles, observing a strict routine and working in logging, mining, and so on.

Of course, there was no talk of any freedom of movement. It was possible to leave the special settlement only with the permission of the commandant. Some special settlers tried to escape from such a life. But for this, a certificate of registration with some village council was needed. So that the competent authorities at the new place of residence do not have questions - where did they come from, what did they do before.

It was with these certificates that Morozov traded. Moreover, he continued to do this even after he was removed from the post of chairman of the village council in 1931. He got burned on them. Over time, one after another, requests began to arrive in Gerasimovka from various factories and factories, as well as from the construction of Magnitogorsk. Vigilant production managers were interested: did the new workers who arrived to them really live earlier in Gerasimovka?

Too often special settlers with false certificates in their pockets began to come across. And in November 1931, at the Tavda station, a certain Zvorykin was detained with two blank forms, on which were the seals of the Gerasimov village council. He honestly admitted to police officers that he had paid 105 rubles for them. A few days later, several people were arrested in the case of fake certificates, including Trofim Morozov.

Fictional denunciation

From this moment begins the same story of Pavlik Morozov. And it starts right away with contradictions. Investigator Elizar Shepelev, who subsequently investigated the murder of the boy, wrote the following in the indictment: "Pavel Morozov filed an application with the investigating authorities on November 25, 1931." This refers to a statement in which Pavlik allegedly accused his father of illegal activities.

However, many years later, Shepelev frankly admitted in an interview: “I can’t understand why on earth I wrote all this, there is no evidence in the case that the boy turned to the investigating authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. Probably, I meant that Pavel testified to the judge when Trofim was tried ... "

I did not find any trace of Pavlik's testimony in the case of Trofim Morozov and the journalist Evgenia Medyakova, who tried to get to the bottom of the truth in the early 1980s. The testimony of his mother is available, but the boy is not. True, at the trial, apparently, he still spoke, but it is unlikely that he said anything new or valuable. Nevertheless, this was enough to arouse hatred for him among his father's relatives. Especially after the court sentenced Trofim to 10 years in the camps and sent him to build the White Sea-Baltic Canal.

Looking ahead, let's say that Trofim Morozov did not complete his term. He returned three years later, with an order for hard work. But by that time, his two sons - Pavel and Fedor - had been killed.

It should be emphasized that after Trofim left the family, Pavel became the eldest man in the family. He took care of his mother and younger brothers, supported the household as best he could. And in the eyes of adults, it was on him, and not on Tatiana, that all the responsibility for the "betrayal" of Trofim lay. Pavel was especially hated by his grandfather Sergei, who was fully supported in this by his wife, grandmother Aksinya (or Ksenia).

Another sworn enemy was Danila's cousin. Finally, his godfather and husband of Trofim's sister Arseniy Kulukanov did not have warm feelings for the boy at all. According to one version, Pavel mentioned his name in his speech at the court, calling him “fist”. These four people ended up in the dock as accused of the murder of Pavel and Fyodor Morozov.

Ordinary atrocity

The following is known about the murder itself. In early September 1932, Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest for berries. Upon learning of this, Kulukanov persuaded Danila to follow them and kill the boys. And even allegedly paid him 5 rubles for it. Danila did not go to the crime alone, but went for advice to his grandfather Sergei.

He calmly stood up and, looking at how the accomplice took the knife, said: "Let's go kill, look, don't be afraid." They found Pavlik and eight-year-old Fedor pretty quickly. Danila inflicted mortal blows on both, but grandfather Sergey did not allow the younger boy to run away.

Since Pavel and Fyodor were going to go into the forest with an overnight stay, they did not miss them right away. Especially since the mother was away. When Tatyana returned to the village, she found out that the children had not returned for the third day. Alarmed, she raised the people in search, and the next day the bodies of the slaughtered children were discovered.

The mother, heartbroken, later told the investigator that on the same day on the street she met grandmother Aksinya, who told her with an evil laugh: “Tatiana, we made meat for you, and now you eat it!”

The investigation quickly found the killers. The main evidence was a household knife and Danila's bloodied clothes, which Aksinya soaked but did not have time to wash (at first they claimed that he had slaughtered a calf the day before). Danila admitted his guilt almost immediately and completely. Grandfather Sergei constantly changed his testimony and got confused, either recognizing or denying what had happened.

Aksinya and Arseny Kulukanov did not confess to anything until the very end. Nevertheless, it was Arseny, together with Danila, who received the most severe punishment - execution. Aksinya and Sergei Morozov, due to their advanced age (the old people were already 80 years old), were sent to live in prison.

Symbol in red tie

This would have ended this, in essence, a simple story of domestic enmity. If the Soviet propaganda had not taken up the matter. The boy, killed by his relatives for two careless words spoken at the court session, was of no use to anyone. But the pioneer hero, who fearlessly exposed the fists with fists and fell in an unequal battle, the plot is what you need.

Therefore, in the very first note on this topic, published in the newspaper Ural Worker on November 19, 1932, the story of Pavlik was told as follows:

“... And when Pasha's grandfather, Sergei Morozov, hid kulak property, Pasha ran to the village council and exposed his grandfather. In 1932, in winter, Pasha brought the kulak Silin Arseniy to fresh water, who did not fulfill a firm task, sold a cart of potatoes to the kulaks.

Pavel again exposed his grandfather and kulukanov. At meetings during sowing, at the time of grain procurements, everywhere the pioneer activist Pasha Morozov exposed the intricate machinations of the kulaks and sub-kulakists ... "

The already difficult life of a simple village teenager, abandoned by his father and carrying on all household chores, suddenly turned into an endless battle with “kulaks and podkulakniks”, who endlessly turned their “frauds” in little Gerasimovka.

Needless to say, there are no documents confirming such an active activity of the "whistleblower" Pavlik Morozov? But the name of such a hero was no longer ashamed to call a pioneer detachment. As well as erect a monument to him.

“To some, Pavlik now seems like a boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer uniform. And because of our poverty, he didn’t even see this uniform, didn’t participate in pioneer parades, didn’t wear portraits of Molotov, and didn’t shout “toast” to the leaders, ”the school teacher Larisa Isakova later recalled, who observed almost the entire story with her own eyes.

But the propaganda machine was already in full swing. Poems, books, plays and even one opera were written about Pavlik Morozov! What exactly and why happened in Gerasimovka in the autumn of 1932 was remembered less and less. less people, and only a few tried to understand the details.

Long arms of the OGPU?

But times have changed and the pendulum has swung the other way. So powerful and uncontrollable. People who were hungry for the truth sought to expose all the myths of the Soviet ideology. At the same time, I was too lazy to delve into the question seriously. Very often they followed the path of least resistance: if something was declared good by the Soviet state, it means that it is actually bad.

This is exactly what happened with Pavlik Morozov. The dirty brand of "traitor" was deserved by him no more than gold medal"hero".

Tatyana Morozova (Pavlik's mother) with her grandson Pavel Morozov. Photo taken in 1979.

Everything was now in doubt. Was Trofim Morozov such a terrible person? Was he deservedly sent to the camp? Did Pavlik write or did not write the unfortunate denunciation of his father? At the same time, for some reason, the simplest and most terrible question was constantly missed: is it possible to kill children?

At the same time, in the exposing excitement, some authors literally reached the point of absurdity. Writer Yuri Druzhnikov in 1987 published a book in the UK with the catchy title "Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov." In it, he turned the whole situation literally upside down.

According to Druzhnikov, Pavlik was a puppet of the all-powerful security officers who sought to arrange a show trial with political overtones. This was necessary, in particular, in order to finally organize a collective farm in Gerasimovka, which the villagers had previously actively resisted.

The author of the book calls the assistant to the authorized OGPU Spiridon Kartashov and Pavel's cousin, Ivan Potupchik, who collaborated with the authorities, the real organizers and perpetrators of the murder. This version has been repeatedly criticized and dismantled literally by the bones.

And not only domestic researchers. Oxford University professor Catriona Kelly, for example, noted that Druzhnikov uses the materials of the official investigation very selectively, recognizing only those that fit his theory as authentic.

Despite the extremely weak argumentation, Druzhnikov nonetheless quite accurately points to weak spots in the official version of the investigation. It's really unclear why the killers didn't bother to hide the knife and the bloodied clothes.

Grandfather Sergei served as a gendarme in the past, grandmother Aksinya once traded in stealing horses. That is, about what the investigation and evidence are, both should have had a good idea. Nevertheless, they made it surprisingly easy and simple to arrest themselves.

However, no matter how much the 80-year-old documents are shuffled, this will not change the main thing in any way. Two boys, Pavel and Fyodor Morozov, are neither heroes nor traitors. And the unfortunate victims of circumstances and dashing time.

Viktor Banev

Pavel Morozov who is he, a hero or a traitor?

The story of Pavel Morozov is well known to the older generation. This boy was included in the ranks of pioneer heroes who performed feats for the sake of their country and people and entered the legends of the Soviet era.

According to the official version, Pavlik Morozov, who sincerely believed in the idea of socialism, told the OGPU about how his father helps kulaks and bandits. Morozov senior was arrested and convicted. But his son paid for his deed, and was killed by his father's relatives.

What is true in this story, and what is propaganda fiction, unfortunately, has not been figured out so far. Who, in reality, was Pavel Morozov, and what was done in reality?

Biography of Pavlik Morozov

Back in 1921, the peasants of Central Russia started a revolt, rebelling against the Bolshevik surplus appropriation, which took away the last grain from the people for the proletarians.

Feat (version of the times of the USSR)

Kulukanov and Danila were shot, grandparents died in custody. The fifth suspect, Arseniy Silin, was acquitted.

After all these events, Pavlik Morozov took first place in the future numerous series of pioneer heroes. But over time, historians began to ask questions and question the facts that were considered indisputable. By the beginning of the 90s, people appeared who called the boy not a hero, but a traitor and informer. One version says that Morozov Jr. tried not for the sake of Bolshevik power, but following the persuasion of his mother. According to this version, she persuaded her son to slander, offended by the fact that her husband left her with her children. This option is not relevant, the father still helped his family a little, supporting them financially.

one more interesting fact are documents of the OGPU. According to some of them, the denunciation was not necessary. The authorities had evidence of the participation of Trofim Morozov in the activities of the gang. And Pavlik was only a witness in his father's case. The boy was threatened with an article for complicity! His father, unsurprisingly then, was illiterate. And Pavel wrote out those very certificates with his own hand, on sheets of student notebooks. These leaflets are present in the archives, but he remained only a witness, assuring these facts before the OGPU officers.

Causes controversy and one more thing. Was the first pioneer hero in the ranks of the pioneers at all? It is definitely difficult to answer this question. In the thirties, there was still no document in use certifying belonging to the pioneers of the Soviet Union. Also, no evidence of Pavlik Morozov's belonging to the pioneer community was found in the archives. The pioneers of the village of Gerasimovka are known only from the words of the school teacher Zoya Kabina.

Trofim Morozov, Pavlik's father, was locked up for ten years. But, according to some reports, he was released after three years for successful work on the Belomor Canal, and even awarded. It's hard to believe it. Other versions are more plausible. One of them says that the former chairman was shot in 1938. But there is no confirmation of such an event. The most common opinion says that the elder Morozov served time and left for the Tyumen region. There he lived out his years, keeping a secret relationship with the famous son.

Such is the story of Pavlik Morozov, who became the first pioneer hero. Subsequently, the Soviet government was accused of false propaganda, denying or misrepresenting the events of those distant times. But everyone is free to draw conclusions and determine their attitude to those old cases.

Country Father Trofim Sergeevich Morozov. Mother Tatyana Semyonovna Baidakova Media at Wikimedia Commons

Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (Pavlik Morozov; November 14, 1918, Gerasimovka, Turinsky district, Tobolsk province, RSFSR - September 3, 1932, Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, Ural region, RSFSR, USSR) - a Soviet student, a student of the Gerasimov school of the Tavdinsky district of the Ural region, who in Soviet times gained fame as a pioneer a hero who opposed the kulaks in the person of his father and paid for it with his life.

Soon, Pavel's father left his family (wife with four children) and began to cohabit with a woman who lived next door - Antonina Amosova. According to the recollections of Pavel's teacher, his father regularly beat his wife and children both before and after leaving the family. Grandfather Pavlik also hated his daughter-in-law because she did not want to live with him on the same farm, but insisted on a division. According to Alexei (Paul's brother), father "I loved only myself and vodka", he did not spare his wife and sons, not like foreign migrants, from whom “Three skins were torn for forms with seals”. The parents of the father also treated the family abandoned by the father to the mercy of fate: “Grandfather and grandmother were also strangers to us for a long time. Never offered anything, never greeted. Grandfather didn’t let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, we just heard: “You can manage without a letter, you will be the owner, and Tatiana’s puppies are your laborers” ”.

In 1931, the father, who was no longer in office, was sentenced to 10 years for “As the chairman of the village council, he was friends with the kulaks, hid their farms from taxation, and upon leaving the village council, he contributed to the flight of special settlers by selling documents”. He was charged with issuing fake certificates to the dispossessed of their belonging to the Gerasimov village council, which gave them the opportunity to leave the place of exile. Trofim Morozov, being imprisoned, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and, after working for three years, returned home with an order for hard work, and then settled in Tyumen.

According to the teacher Pavlik Morozov L.P. Isakova, cited by Veronika Kononenko, Pavlik's mother was "pretty face and very kind". After the murder of her sons, Tatyana Morozova left the village and, fearing a meeting with her ex-husband, for many years did not dare to visit her native places. Ultimately, after the Great Patriotic War, she settled in Alupka, where she died in 1983. Pavlik's younger brother Roman, according to one version, died at the front during the war, according to another, he survived, but became disabled and died shortly after it ended. Alexei became the only child of the Morozovs who married: from different marriages he had two sons - Denis and Pavel. Having divorced his first wife, he moved to his mother in Alupka, where he tried not to talk about his relationship with Pavlik, and spoke about him only in the late 1980s, when a campaign of persecution of Pavlik began at the height of Perestroika (see below his letter).

Life

Pavel's teacher recalled poverty in the village of Gerasimovka:

The school I was in charge of worked in two shifts. At that time we had no idea about the radio, electricity, we sat by the torch in the evenings, we took care of the kerosene. There was no ink either, they wrote with beetroot juice. Poverty in general was appalling. When we, teachers, began to go from house to house, enrolling children in school, it turned out that many of them did not have any clothes. The children sat naked on the beds, covered themselves with some rags. The kids climbed into the oven and warmed themselves in the ashes. We organized a reading room, but there were almost no books, and local newspapers came very rarely. To some, Pavlik now seems like a kind of boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer form. And he, because of our poverty, this form and didn't see it with my eyes.

Forced to provide for his family under such difficult conditions, Paul nevertheless consistently showed a desire to learn. According to his teacher L.P. Isakova:

He was very eager to learn, took books from me, only he had no time to read, he often missed his lessons because of work in the field and housework. Then he tried to catch up, managed to do well, and even taught his mother to read and write ...

After his father left for another woman, all the worries about the peasant economy fell on Pavel - he became the eldest man in the Morozov family.

The murder of Pavlik and his younger brother Fyodor

Pavlik and his younger brother went to the forest for berries. They were found dead with stab wounds. From the indictment:

Morozov Pavel, being a pioneer throughout the current year, waged a devoted, active struggle against the class enemy, the kulaks and their sub-kulakists, spoke at public meetings, exposed the kulak tricks and repeatedly stated this ...

Pavel had a very difficult relationship with his father's relatives. M. E. Chulkova describes such an episode:

... Once Danila hit Pavel with a shaft on the arm so hard that it began to swell. Mother Tatyana Semyonovna stood between them, Danila and she was hit in the face so that blood came out of her mouth. The grandmother who came running screamed:
Slaughter this snotty communist!
Let's skin them! yelled Daniel...

On September 2, Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, intending to spend the night there (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell the calf). On September 6, Dmitry Shatrakov found their corpses in an aspen forest.

The mother of the brothers describes the events of these days in a conversation with the investigator as follows:

On the second of September I left for Tavda, and on the 3rd Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest for berries. I returned on the 5th and found out that Pasha and Fedya had not returned from the forest. I began to worry and turned to the policeman, who gathered the people, and the people went into the forest to look for my children. Soon they were found stabbed to death.
My middle son Alexei, he is 11 years old, said that on September 3rd he saw Danila walking very quickly from the forest, and our dog was running after him. Alexei asked if he had seen Pavel and Fyodor, to which Danila did not answer and only laughed. He was dressed in self-woven trousers and a black shirt - Alexey remembered this well. It was these pants and shirt that were found at Sergey Sergeevich Morozov's during the search.
I can’t help but note that on September 6, when my slaughtered children were brought from the forest, grandmother Aksinya met me on the street and said with a grin: “Tatiana, we made meat for you, and now you eat it!”.

The first act of examination of the bodies, drawn up by district police officer Yakov Titov, in the presence of the paramedic of the Gorodischevsk medical center P. Makarov, witnesses Pyotr Ermakov, Avraam Kniga and Ivan Barkin, reports that:

Morozov Pavel was lying from the road at a distance of 10 meters, with his head to the east. There is a red bag over his head. Paul was given a fatal blow to the stomach. The second blow was delivered to the chest near the heart, under which there were scattered cranberries. Near Pavel there was one basket, the other was thrown aside. His shirt was torn in two places, and there was a purple blood stain on his back. Hair color - light brown, white face, blue eyes, open, mouth closed. There are two birches at the feet (...) The corpse of Fyodor Morozov was fifteen meters from Pavel in a swamp and a small aspen forest. Fedor was stabbed in the left temple with a stick, his right cheek was stained with blood. A mortal blow was inflicted with a knife in the belly above the navel, where the intestines came out, and the hand was cut with a knife to the bone.

The second act of inspection, made by the city paramedic Markov after washing the bodies, states that:

Pavel Morozov has one superficial wound measuring 4 centimeters on the chest from the right side in the region of 5-6 ribs, a second superficial wound in the epigastric region, a third wound from the left side to the stomach, hypochondrium measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and the fourth wound from the right side (from the pupart ligament) measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and death followed. In addition, a large wound 6 centimeters long was inflicted on the left hand, along the metacarpus of the thumb.

Pavel and Fyodor Morozov were buried at the Gerasimovka cemetery. An obelisk with a red star was placed on the grave hill, and a cross was dug next to it with the inscription: “On September 3, 1932, two Morozov brothers, Pavel Trofimovich, born in 1918, and Fyodor Trofimovich, died from the evil of a man from a sharp knife.”

Trial in the case of the murder of Pavlik Morozov

In the process of investigating the murder, his close connection with the previous case of Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, was revealed.

Early trial of Trofim Morozov

Pavel testified at the preliminary investigation, confirming his mother's words that his father beat his mother and brought into the house things received as payment for issuing false documents (one of the researchers, Yuri Druzhnikov, suggests that Pavel could not see this, because his father had not lived with family). According to Druzhnikov, in the murder case it is noted that “On November 25, 1931, Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigating authorities that his father Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council and being connected with local kulaks, was engaged in forging documents and selling them to kulaks- special settlers". The application was related to the investigation into the case of a false certificate issued by the Gerasimovskiy village council to a special settler; he allowed Trofim to be involved in the case. Trofim Morozov was arrested and tried in February next year.

In the indictment in the case of the murder of the Morozovs, investigator Elizar Vasilyevich Shepelev recorded that "Pavel Morozov filed an application with the investigating authorities on November 25, 1931." In an interview with journalist Veronika Kononenko and Senior Counsel for Justice Igor Titov, Shepelev said:

I can’t understand why on earth I wrote all this, there is no evidence in the case that the boy applied to the investigating authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. Probably, I meant that Pavel testified to the judge when Trofim was being tried ... It turns out that because of my inaccurately written words, the boy is now accused of denunciation?! But is it a crime to help the investigation or to act as a witness in court? And is it possible to accuse a person of anything because of one phrase?

Trofim Morozov and other village council chairmen were arrested on November 26 and 27, the day after the "denunciation". According to the results of a journalistic investigation by Evgenia Medyakova, published in the Ural magazine in 1982, it was found out that Pavel Morozov was not involved in the arrest of his father. On November 22, 1931, a certain Zworykin was detained at the Tavda station. Two blank forms with the stamps of the Gerasimov Village Council were found on him, for which, according to him, he gave 105 rubles. The certificate attached to the case states that before his arrest, Trofim was no longer the chairman of the village council, but "the clerk of the Gorodischensky general store." Medyakova also writes that, “Tavda and Gerasimovka have repeatedly received requests from the construction of Magnitogorsk, from many factories, factories and collective farms about whether citizens (a number of surnames) are really residents of Gerasimovka.” Consequently, the verification of the holders of false certificates began. “And most importantly, Medyakova did not find the boy’s testimony in the investigation file! Tatyana Semyonovna has testimonies, but Pavlik does not! For he did not make any “statements to the investigating authorities!”

Pavel, following his mother, spoke in court, but in the end was stopped by the judge due to his infancy. In the case of the murder of Morozov, it is said: “At the trial, son Pavel outlined all the details about his father, his tricks.” The speech delivered by Pavlik is known in 12 versions, mainly dating back to the book of the journalist Pyotr Solomein. In the record from the archive of Solomein himself, this accusatory speech is transmitted as follows:

Uncles, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October, but is trying in every possible way to help the kulak escape, he stood up for him with a mountain, and not as a son, but as a pioneer, I ask that my father be held accountable , because in the future not to give the habit to others to hide the kulak and clearly violate the party line, and I will also add that my father will now appropriate the kulak property, took the bed of kulukanov Arseny Kulukanov (husband of T. Morozov’s sister and Pavel’s godfather) and wanted to take from him a haystack, but Kulukanov's fist did not give him hay, but said, let him take it better x ...

Version of the prosecution

The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, fist Arseny Kulukanov, having learned about the boys leaving for berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 5 rubles and asking him to invite Sergey Morozov, "with whom Kulukanov had previously colluded," to kill him. Returning from Kulukanov and having finished the harrowing (that is, harrowing, loosening the soil), Danila went home and relayed the conversation to grandfather Sergei. The latter, seeing that Danila was taking a knife, left the house without a word and went with Danila, telling him: “Let's go kill, look, don't be afraid.” Finding the children, Danila, without saying a word, took out a knife and hit Pavel; Fedya rushed to run, but was detained by Sergei and also stabbed to death by Danila. " Convinced that Fedya was dead, Danila returned to Pavel and stabbed him several more times.».

The murder of Morozov was widely publicized as a manifestation of kulak terror (against a member of the Pioneer organization) and served as a pretext for widespread repressions on an all-Union scale; in Gerasimovka itself, it finally made it possible to organize a collective farm (before that, all attempts were frustrated by the peasants). In Tavda, in the club named after Stalin, a show trial of the alleged murderers took place. At the trial, Danila Morozov confirmed all the accusations, Sergei Morozov was contradictory, either confessing or denying his guilt. All other defendants pleaded not guilty. The main evidence was a household knife found at Sergey Morozov's, and Danila's bloodied clothes, soaked but not washed by Ksenia (allegedly Danila had slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova before).

Verdict of the Ural Regional Court

By the decision of the Ural Regional Court, their own grandfather Sergey (Trofim Morozov's father) and 19-year-old cousin Danila, as well as grandmother Ksenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel's godfather - Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle, were found guilty in the murder of Pavel Morozov and his brother Fyodor (as a village fist - as the initiator and organizer of the murder). After the trial, Arseny Kulukanov and Danila Morozov were shot, octogenarian Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison. Another uncle of Pavlik, Arseniy Silin, was also accused of complicity in the murder, but during the trial he was acquitted.

Yu. I. Druzhnikov's version and criticism of the version

Druzhnikov's version

According to the writer Yuri Druzhnikov, who published the book “Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” in 1987 in the UK, many circumstances related to the life of Pavel Morozov are distorted by propaganda and are controversial.

In particular, Druzhnikov questions that Pavlik Morozov was a pioneer. According to Druzhnikov, he was declared a pioneer almost immediately after his death (the latter, according to Druzhnikov, was important for the investigation, as it brought his murder under the article on political terror).

Druzhnikov claims that, having testified against his father, Pavlik deserved to "general hatred"; they began to call him "Pashka-kumanist" (communist). Druzhnikov considers official claims that Pavel actively helped to identify "Bread Clamps", those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet government, etc. According to the author, according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not "serious whistleblower", because “to inform is, you know, a serious job, but he was like that, a nit, a petty dirty trick”. According to Druzhnikov, only two such cases were documented in the murder case. "denunciation" .

He considers it illogical the behavior of the alleged killers who did not take any measures to hide the traces of the crime (they did not drown the corpses in the swamp, leaving them by the road; they did not wash the bloody clothes in time; they did not clean the knife from traces of blood, while putting it in the place in which the first thing they look at during a search). All this is especially strange, given that Morozov's grandfather was a gendarme in the past, and his grandmother was a professional horse thief.

According to Druzhnikov, the murder was the result of a provocation by the OGPU, organized with the participation of an assistant authorized by the OGPU, Spiridon Kartashov, and Pavel's cousin, Ivan Potupchik, an informer. In this regard, the author describes a document that he claims to have found in the case file no. 374 (about the murder of the Morozov brothers). This paper was compiled by Kartashov and is a record of the interrogation of Potupchik as a witness in the case of the murder of Pavel and Fyodor. The document is dated September 4, that is, according to the date, it was drawn up two days before the discovery of the corpses.

According to Yuri Druzhnikov, expressed in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

There was no consequence. The corpses were ordered to be buried before the arrival of the investigator without examination. Journalists also sat on the stage as accusers, speaking about the political importance of shooting kulaks. The lawyer accused the defendants of murder and left to applause. Different sources report different methods of murder, the prosecutor and the judge were confused about the facts. A knife with traces of blood found in the house was called the murder weapon, but Danila was slaughtering a calf that day - no one checked whose blood it was. The accused grandfather, grandmother, uncle and cousin of Pavlik Danila tried to say that they were beaten and tortured. The shooting of the innocent in November 1932 was the signal for a massacre of peasants throughout the country.

Criticism and rebuttals of Druzhnikov's claims

Outrage of brother and teacher

What kind of trial did they put on my brother? It's embarrassing and scary. My brother was called an informer in the magazine. Lie it! Pavel always fought openly. Why is he insulted? Has our family suffered a little grief? Who is being bullied? Two of my brothers were killed. The third, Roman, came from the front disabled, died young. I was slandered during the war as an enemy of the people. He spent ten years in the camp. And then they rehabilitated. And now slander on Pavlik. How to endure all this? They doomed me to torture worse than in the camps. It is good that my mother did not live to see these days ... I am writing, but tears are choking. So it seems that Pashka is again defenseless on the road. ... The editor of "Ogonyok" Korotich at the radio station "Freedom" said that my brother is a son of a bitch, which means my mother ... Yuri Izrailevich Alperovich-Druzhnikov worked his way into our family, drank tea with my mother, sympathized with us, and then published in London a vile book - a bunch of such disgusting lies and slander that, after reading it, I got a second heart attack. Z. A. Kabina also fell ill, she still wanted to sue the author in an international court, but where is she - Alperovich lives in Texas and chuckles - try to get him, the teacher's pension is not enough. The chapters from the book “The Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” by this scribbler were circulated by many newspapers and magazines, no one takes my protests into account, no one needs the truth about my brother ... It seems that I have only one thing left - to douse myself with gasoline, and that's it!

Criticism of the author and his book

Druzhnikov's words contradict the memoirs of Pavel's first teacher, Larisa Pavlovna Isakova: “I didn’t manage to organize the pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then, it was created after me by Zoya Kabina<…>. Once I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it to Pavel, and he joyfully ran home. At home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. [..] The commune collapsed, and my husband was beaten half to death with fists. Ustinya Potupchik saved me, she warned me that Kulakanov and his company were going to be killed. [..] So, probably, since then Pavlik Kulakanov began to hate, he was the first to join the pioneers when the detachment was organized.. Journalist V.P. Kononenko, citing Pavel Morozov's teacher Zoya Kabina, confirms that “it was she who created the first pioneer detachment in the village, which was headed by Pavel Morozov” .

Yuri Druzhnikov stated that Kelly used his work not only in valid references, but also by repeating the book's composition, selection of details, descriptions. In addition, Dr. Kelly, according to Druzhnikov, came to the exact opposite conclusion about the role of the OGPU-NKVD in the murder of Pavlik.

According to Dr. Kelly, Mr. Druzhnikov considered the Soviet official materials unreliable, but used them when it was advantageous to support his account. According to Catriona Kelly, instead of a scientific presentation of criticism of her book, Druzhnikov published a "denunciation" with the assumption of Kelly's connection with the "organs". Dr. Kelly did not find much difference between the conclusions of the books and attributed some of the points of criticism of Mr. Druzhnikov to a lack of knowledge of him. of English language and English culture.

Investigation of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, personal requests of Alexander Liskin

Alexander Alekseevich Liskin took part in an additional investigation of the case in 1967 and requested murder case No. H-7825-66 from the archives of the KGB of the USSR. In an article published between 1998 and 2001, Liskin pointed to the "scuffle" and "falsification" on the part of Inspector Titov, uncovered during the investigation. In 1995, Liskin requested official certificates of the alleged criminal record of Father Pavlik, but the internal affairs bodies of Sverdlovskaya and Tyumen regions found no such information. Liskin suggested checking the "secret corners of the dusty archives" to find the real killers of the Morozov brothers.

Liskin agreed with the arguments of the editor of the department of the magazine "Chelovek i Zakon" Veronika Kononenko about the witness nature of Pavlik's speech at his father's trial and about the absence of secret denunciations.

The decision of the Supreme Court of Russia

In the spring of 1999, the co-chairman of the Kurgan Memorial Society, Innokenty Khlebnikov, on behalf of Arseny Kulukanov's daughter Matryona Shatrakova, sent a petition to the Prosecutor General's Office to review the decision of the Ural Regional Court, which sentenced the teenager's relatives to death. The General Prosecutor's Office of Russia came to the following conclusion:

The verdict of the Ural Regional Court dated November 28, 1932 and the ruling of the judicial-cassation board of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated February 28, 1933 in respect of Kulukanov Arseny Ignatievich and Morozova Xenia Ilyinichna should be changed: re-qualify their actions from Art. 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the USSR at Art. 17 and 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the USSR, leaving the previous measure of punishment.
To recognize Sergey Sergeevich Morozov and Daniil Ivanovich Morozov as reasonably convicted in the present case for committing a counter-revolutionary crime and not subject to rehabilitation.

Prosecutor General's Office dealing with the rehabilitation of victims political repression, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov is purely criminal in nature, and the killers are not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds. This conclusion, together with the materials of the additional verification of case No. 374, was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which decided to refuse rehabilitation of the alleged murderers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fyodor.

Opinions on the decision of the Supreme Court

According to Boris Sopelnyak, “in the midst of the perestroika hysteria [..] the so-called ideologists, who had been let into the dollar feeder, tried the hardest [to knock out love for the Motherland from the youth] . According to Sopelnyak, the General Prosecutor's Office carefully considered the case.

According to Maura Reynolds, Matryona Shatrakova died three months before the Supreme Court's decision arrived in 2001, and the postman refused to deliver the decision to her daughter.

Name immortalization

On July 2, 1936, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the construction of a monument to Pavlik Morozov in Moscow at the entrance to Red Square.
Monuments were erected to Pavlik Morozov: in Moscow (in 1948, in the children's park named after him on Krasnaya Presnya; demolished in 1991), the village of Gerasimovka (1954), in Sverdlovsk (1957), the city of Ostrov, in the city of Glazov, in the city of Ukhta (Komi Republic), in Kaliningrad.
The name of Pavlik Morozov was given to Gerasimov and other collective farms, schools, and pioneer squads.
Novovagankovsky pereulok in Moscow was renamed Pavlik Morozov Street in 1939, and a club named after him was organized in the Church of St. Nicholas on the Three Mountains.
The Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Puppet Theater bore the name of Pavlik Morozov.
In 1935, film director Sergei Eisenstein began working on Alexander Rzheshevsky's script for Bezhin Meadow about Pavlik Morozov. The work could not be completed, because on the basis of the draft version of the film, Eisenstein was accused of "deliberate understatement of the ideological content" and "exercises in formalism."
Maxim Gorky called Pavlik "one of the little miracles of our era."
In 1954, the composer Yuri Balkashin composed the musical poem Pavlik Morozov.
In 1955, he was listed under No. 1 in the Book of Honor of the All-Union Pioneer Organization named after. V. I. Lenin. Under number 2, Kolya Myagotin was listed in the same book.
In Yekaterinburg there is a park named after Pavlik Morozov. There was a monument depicting Pavlik in the park. In the 1990s, the monument was torn off its pedestal, lay in the bushes for some time and disappeared.
In Turinsk Sverdlovsk region there was Pavlik Morozov Square, in the center of the square there was a monument depicting Pavlik in full growth and with a pioneer tie. In the 90s, the monument was stolen by unidentified persons. Now the square has been renamed the "Historical Square".
There is a station named after Pavlik Morozov in Chelyabinsk on the Malaya South Ural Railway.
In the Children's Park of Simferopol there is a bust of P. Morozov on the alley of pioneer heroes.
In the Children's Park of the city of Ukhta (Komi Republic), a monument to P. Morozov was opened on June 20, 1968. According to other sources in 1972. The author is the sculptor A. K. Ambruliavius.

In honor of Pavlik Morozov, many streets in the cities and villages of the former Soviet Union are named, many streets bear this name even now: in Perm and Krasnokamsk (streets), in Ufa (street and alley), Tula (street and passage), Ashe - the regional center Chelyabinsk region,

Many people mention it very often, but often know very little. And if they know, it is not the fact that the truth.

He twice became a victim of political propaganda: in the era of the USSR, he was presented as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and in perestroika times, as an informer who betrayed his own father.

Modern historians question both myths about Pavlik Morozov, who became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.

The house where Pavlik Morozov lived, 1950

This story took place at the beginning of September 1932 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. The grandmother sent her grandchildren for cranberries, and a few days later the bodies of the brothers with traces of violent death were found in the forest. Fedor was 8 years old, Pavel - 14. According to the canonical version generally accepted in the USSR, Pavlik Morozov was the organizer of the first pioneer detachment in his village, and in the midst of the struggle against the kulaks, he denounced his father, who collaborated with the kulaks. As a result, Trofim Morozov was sent to a 10-year exile, and according to other sources, he was shot in 1938.

In fact, Pavlik was not a pioneer - a pioneer organization appeared in their village only a month after his murder. The tie was later simply added to his portrait. He did not write any denunciations about his father. His ex-wife testified against Trofim at the trial. Pavlik only confirmed the testimony of his mother that Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council, sold certificates to migrant kulaks about being registered with the village council and that they had no tax debts to the state. These certificates were in the hands of the Chekists, and Trofim Morozov would have been tried even without the testimony of his son. He and several other district chairmen were arrested and sent to prison.

N. Chebakov. Pavlik Morozov, 1952

Relations in the Morozov family were not easy. Pavlik's grandfather was a gendarme, and his grandmother was a horse thief. They met in prison, where he guarded her. Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, had a scandalous reputation: he was a reveler, cheated on his wife and, as a result, left her with four children. The chairman of the village council was indeed dishonest - that he earned on fictitious certificates and appropriated the property of the dispossessed, all the villagers knew. There was no political subtext in Pavlik's act - he simply supported his mother, who was unjustly offended by his father. And the grandmother and grandfather for this hated both him and his mother. In addition, when Trofim left his wife, according to the law, his allotment of land passed to his eldest son Pavel, since the family was left without a livelihood. By killing the heir, relatives could count on the return of the land.

Relatives accused of killing Pavlik Morozov

An investigation began immediately after the murder. Bloody clothes and a knife were found in the grandfather's house, with which the children were stabbed to death. During interrogations, Pavel's grandfather and cousin confessed to the crime: allegedly the grandfather held Pavel while Danila stabbed him. The case had a huge impact. This murder was presented in the press as an act of kulak terror against a member of a pioneer organization. Pavlik Morozov was immediately hailed as a pioneer hero.

Only many years later, many details began to raise questions: why, for example, Pavel's grandfather, a former gendarme, did not get rid of the murder weapon and traces of the crime. The writer, historian and journalist Yuri Druzhnikov (aka Alperovich) put forward a version that Pavlik Morozov denounced his father on behalf of his mother - in order to take revenge on his father, and was killed by an OGPU agent in order to cause mass repressions and the expulsion of kulaks - this was the logical conclusion to the story about villainous fists who are ready to kill children for their own benefit. Collectivization took place with great difficulty, the pioneer organization was poorly received in the country. In order to change people's attitudes, new heroes and new legends were needed. Therefore, Pavlik was just a puppet of the Chekists, who sought to arrange a show trial.

Yuri Druzhnikov and his sensational book about Pavlik Morozov

However, this version caused massive criticism and was crushed. In 1999, the Morozovs' relatives and representatives of the Memorial movement secured a review of this case in court, but the Prosecutor General's Office concluded that the murderers had been justifiably convicted and were not subject to political rehabilitation.

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the Sverdlovsk region, 1968. Pavlik's mother Tatyana Morozova with her grandson Pavel, 1979

Pioneers visit the site of the death of Pavlik Morozov, 1968

Writer Vladimir Bushin is sure that it was a family drama without any political overtones. In his opinion, the boy only counted on the fact that his father would be frightened and returned to the family, and could not foresee the consequences of his actions. He only thought about helping his mother and brothers, since he was the eldest son.

The school where Pavlik Morozov studied, and now there is a museum named after him

Museum of Pavlik Morozov

No matter how the story of Pavlik Morozov is interpreted, his fate does not become less tragic. His death served the Soviet government as a symbol of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals, and in the perestroika era it was used to discredit this government.

Monuments to Pavlik Morozov

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the city of Ostrov, Pskov region

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