During the investigation and trial of his father, who left their family, Trofim Morozov, chairman of the Gerasimovsky village council, testified against him in support of his mother's testimony. A few months later, Pavel and his 8-year-old brother Fyodor, who went to the forest for berries, were found dead with stab wounds.

Their own grandfather Sergey (Trofim Morozov's father) and 19-year-old cousin Danila were accused of murder, as well as grandmother Xenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel's godfather, Arseniy Kulukanov, who was his uncle (as a village "fist" - as an 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.

According to the official version, the young pioneer Pavlik Morozov bravely exposed the crimes of the kulaks against the Soviet regime and was killed by them out of revenge.

Biography

Official portrait of Pavlik Morozov. Made on the basis of a photograph with classmates - the only one in his life.

A family

Born in the family of Trofim Morozov, a red partisan, then chairman of the village council, and Tatyana Semyonovna Morozova, nee Baidakova. The father, like all the inhabitants of the village, was an ethnic Belarusian (a family of Stolypin immigrants, in Gerasimovka with). Subsequently, the father left the family (wife with four sons) and started a second family with Antonina Amosova; as a result of his departure, all the worries about the peasant economy fell on the eldest son Pavel. According to the recollections of Pavel's teacher, his father regularly drank and 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, Pavel's brother, the father "loved only himself and vodka", he did not spare his wife and sons, not like foreign migrants, from whom "he tore three skins for forms with seals." Pavel's grandfather and grandmother also treated the family abandoned by their father to the mercy of fate: “Grandfather and grandmother were also strangers to us for a long time. Never offered anything, never greeted. Grandfather did not let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, we only heard: “You can manage without a letter, you will be the owner, and Tatiana's puppies you have laborers."

According to the memories collected and presented in his book by Yuri Druzhnikov, Pavel was a physically weak, sickly, nervous and unbalanced boy. According to Solomein's entry, Pavlik "loved to hooligan, fight, quarrel, sing bad songs, smoke." Druzhnikov, referring to the words of Zoya Kabina, writes that Pavel studied poorly and rarely attended school, liked to play cards for money and sing thieves' songs. He liked to tease, poison someone: “No matter how much you persuade, he will take revenge, he will do it his own way. Out of spite, he often fought, simply out of a tendency to quarrel. In view of the family's poverty, he wore bast shoes and a tattered father's coat; was the dirtiest in the class, rarely washed. He was tongue-tied: he spoke with interruptions, gekaya, it is not always clear, in a half-Russian-half-Belarusian language, like: “But you can’t get past anymore.” Druzhnikov points out that in 1931 Pavel entered the first grade for the third time and was transferred to the second grade in the middle of the year, as he finally learned to read and write. However, it should be noted that often Pavel had no time for studying - as the eldest in the family, he had to work hard to feed the large family left by his father and try to escape from poverty.

Pavel's teacher recalled the general appalling 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 form and did not see it in the eyes, did not participate in pioneer parades and did not wear portraits of Molotov, like Amlinsky, and did not shout “toast” to the leaders.

Forced in such difficult conditions to provide for his family instead of his father, Paul nevertheless invariably 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 ...

Doom

Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, intending to spend the night there, on September 2 (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell the calf). On September 6, their bodies were found. The protocol, drawn up by the district policeman Yakov Titov, reports:

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 arm was also cut with a knife to the bone.

Trial

The case of the murder of pioneer Pavel Morozov
Demonstration trial of the chairman of the village council with. Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, Morozov Trofim gathered hundreds of people.
Read the indictment. The interrogation of witnesses began. Suddenly, the condensed silence of the measured course of the trial was pierced by a sonorous childish voice:
- Uncle, let me tell you!
There was a commotion in the hall. The spectators jumped up from their seats, the back rows poured into those sitting, there was a stampede at the doors. The chairman of the court with difficulty restored order ...
- It was I who filed a lawsuit against my father. As a pioneer, I refuse my father. He created a clear counter-revolution. My father is not the defender of October. He helped kulukanov Arsentiy in every possible way. It was he who helped the fists escape. It was he who hid the kulak property so that the collective farmers would not get it ...
- I ask that my father be brought to severe responsibility so that others will not be given the habit of defending the kulaks.
The 12-year-old pioneer witness Pavel Morozov finished his testimony. No. It was not a witness statement. It was a merciless indictment by the young defender of socialism against those who stood on the side of the frenzied enemies of the proletarian revolution.
Trofim Morozov, exposed by his pioneer son, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for liaising with local kulaks, fabricating false documents for them, and hiding kulak property.
Pioneer Pavel Morozov, after the trial, came to the family of his grandfather Sergey Morozov. Unfriendly met in the family of a fearless whistleblower. A blank wall of hidden enmity surrounded the boy. The native was a pioneer detachment. Pasha ran there as if he were his own family, there he shared joys and sorrows. There they taught him a passionate intolerance for the kulaks and their sing-alongs.
And when Pasha's grandfather, Sergei Morozov, hid kulak property, Pasha ran to the village council and exposed his grandfather.
In winter, Pasha brought the kulak Silin Arseniy to fresh water, who did not fulfill a firm task, and sold a cartload of potatoes to the kulaks. In the fall, the dispossessed Kulukanov stole 16 pounds of rye from the village Soviet field and again hid them from his father-in-law, Sergei Morozov. 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 kulaks and sub-kulakists...
And gradually, thoughtfully, preparations began for a terrible and bloody reprisal against the pioneer activist. First, Danila Morozov, Pavel's cousin, was dragged into the criminal conspiracy, and then his grandfather, Sergei. For a fee of 30 rubles, Danila Morozov, with the help of his grandfather, undertook to kill his hated relative. Kulukanov's fist skillfully fueled Danila's and grandfather's hostility towards Pavel. Pavel was increasingly met with brutal beatings and unequivocal threats.
“If you don’t leave the detachment, then I’ll slaughter you, the damned pioneer,” Danila wheezed, beating Pavel until he lost consciousness ...
On August 26, Pavel submitted a statement of threats to the district police officer. Either due to political myopia, or for other reasons, the district policeman did not have time to intervene in the case. On September 3, on a clear autumn day, Pavel, together with his 9-year-old brother Fedya, ran into the forest for berries ...
In the evening, calmly in front of everyone, Danila Morozov and grandfather Sergei finished their harrowing and sat down and headed home.
Dear imperceptibly turned into the forest. We met Fedya and Pasha quite close ...
The reprisal was short. The knife stopped the rebellious heart of the young pioneer. Then, just as quickly, they finished with an unnecessary witness - nine-year-old Fedya. Danila and grandfather calmly returned home and sat down to dinner. Grandmother Ksenya also calmly and busily began to soak her bloody clothes. A knife was hidden behind the holy images in a dark corner...
One of these days, the case of the murder of pioneer activist Pavel Morozov and his nine-year-old brother will be heard on the spot in a show trial.
Active instigators of the murder are sitting on the dock - kulukanov, Silin, killers Sergei and Danila Morozov, their accomplice Ksenya Morozova ...
Pavel Morozov is not alone. People like him are legions. They unmask the grain-huggers, the plunderers of public property, they, if necessary, bring their fist-fisted fathers to the dock...

Morozov's role in his father's case is not entirely clear. Together with his mother, he testified at the preliminary investigation, stating that his father beat his mother and brought into the house things received as payment for the issuance of false documents (in fact, he could not see this, because his father had not lived with his family for a long time). 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 special settlers.” The denunciation was connected with the investigation into the case of a false certificate issued by the Gerasimovsky 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.

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 allegedly 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:

The underlying reason, it is believed, was domestic: Tatyana Morozova wanted to take revenge on her husband who had left her and hoped, by scaring her, to return to her family.

The official version of the prosecution

The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, the “fist” Arseniy Kulukanov, having learned about the boys leaving for berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 30 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 (i.e., 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 presented 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. According to other sources, he did not confess to the murder at all. 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 Xenia (before that, Danila had slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova). Of the accused, Arseniy Silin was acquitted, the rest were sentenced to death; Kulukanov and Danila were shot, octogenarian Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison.

Yuri Druzhnikov's version

The decision of the Supreme Court of Russia

However, the attempt to present the murderers of the Morozov brothers as victims of political repression and subject to immediate rehabilitation ended in failure. The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, having carefully considered the case, having studied all the documents, having weighed all the pros and cons, taking into account all the attendant circumstances, 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 RSFSR dated February 28, 1933 in relation to Kulukanov Arseny Ignatievich and Morozova Xenia Ilyinichna to change: re-qualify their actions from Art. 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR at Art. Art. 17 and 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, 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.

This conclusion, together with the materials of the additional verification of case No. 374, was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which in 1999 made a final decision and refused rehabilitation to the murderers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fyodor.

Reaction to Druzhnikov's book

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 Mr. Druzhnikov's criticisms to his lack of knowledge of the English language and English culture.

Disagreements

Veronika Kononenko claims, with reference to Morozov's teacher Zoya Kabina, "that it was she who created the first pioneer detachment in the village, which was headed by Pavel Morozov." According to the testimony of a professor at the University of California, Yuri Druzhnikov, however, the cabin told him: “There was no talk of pioneers. I couldn’t tell Solomein about joining the pioneers.” He also cites a phrase from Solomein’s archive: “And if we adhere to the historical truth, then Pavlik Morozov not only never wore, but never saw a pioneer tie”, which contradicts the memoirs of Pavel’s first teacher Larisa Isakova: “I didn’t have a pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then I managed to organize it, Zoya Kabina created it after me, but I also told the guys about how children are fighting for a better life in other cities and villages. Once I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it to Pavel, and he joyfully ran home. And at home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. It is also possible that Pavel did not see a pioneer tie, but a pioneer form: “To some now Pavlik seems like a kind of boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer form. And he, because of our poverty, this form and did not see in the eye ... ".

Druzhnikov claims that after the events described, Morozov earned general hatred in the village; they began to call him "Pashka-kumanist" (communist). According to official biographies, Pavel Morozov actively helped to identify bread-crowders, those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet regime, etc. . Druzhnikov considers these descriptions to be too exaggerated both in terms of the number and duration of Pavel's cooperation with the authorities; according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not a serious scammer, since “to inform is, you know, a serious job, but he was like that, a nit, a petty dirty trick.” In the murder case, only two such denunciations were documented: “In the winter of 1932, Pavel Morozov informed the village council that Silin Arseniy<его дядя>, having not completed a solid task, he sold a cartload of potatoes to special settlers. Another denunciation was against the peasant Mizyukhin, in whose place Pavel's grandfather Sergei allegedly hid a "walker" (a cart; a search was made at Mezyukhin, but nothing was found).

In fact, the main informant in the village was Pavel's cousin Ivan Potupchik (later an honorary pioneer; convicted of raping a minor).

Similar processes

During the days of the campaign associated with the murder of Pavlik, another well-known case was opened about the murder of Kolya Myagotin, a pioneer in the village of Kolesnikovo, Kurgan Region, on October 25 with fists. In this case, 12 people were convicted, 3 of them were shot. In 1996, the convicts were rehabilitated, as it turned out that Kolya, who had never been a pioneer, was shot dead at night by a watchman while stealing sunflower seeds. Yuri Druzhnikov counted in 1932 (after the murder of Pavel and Fedya) - 3, in 1933 - 6, in 1934 - 6 and in 1935 - 9 cases of murders of children, qualified by the authorities as the murder of pioneers for denunciations; in total, during the Stalin era, he noted 56 such cases.

Among the "pioneer-heroes" of this kind, there were also simply fictitious figures, like Grisha Hakobyan from Ganja, allegedly killed by "kulak sons" in October 1930 (invented on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Azerbaijan).

glorification

Pavlik Morozov denounces his father. Rice. from the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda"

Morozov's name was given to Gerasimov and other collective farms, schools, and pioneer squads. Monuments were erected to Pavlik Morozov in Moscow (, in the children's park named after him on Krasnaya Presnya; demolished in), the village of Gerasimovka () and in Sverdlovsk (). Poems and songs were written about Pavlik Morozov, an opera of the same name was written. In 1935, film director Sergei Eisenstein began working on the script for Alexander Rzheshevsky's Bezhin Meadow about Pavlik Morozov. The job could not be completed. Maxim Gorky called Pavlik "one of the little miracles of our era."

Pavlik Morozov in the public mind

Estimates of the personality of Pavlik Morozov and especially the propaganda campaign around his name have always been ambiguous. Along with glorification, there was a widespread negative attitude towards him, although in Soviet times it could not be expressed publicly.

In the adult environment, the attitude towards Pavlik Morozov was determined by the fact that he turned into a symbol of such a phenomenon that permeated Soviet society as denunciation. So, Galina Vishnevskaya wrote:

With the beginning of perestroika, this attitude found public expression and became dominant. Pavlik Morozov began to act as a symbol of betrayal, along with Judas. In this spirit, for example, he is mentioned in a sermon on the topic of Judas sin by pastor Stanislav Vershinin: “Nevertheless, few people want to see Judas Iscariot in themselves - it’s better to admit the presence in your “I” of the nature of a murderer, Cain, than such a vile traitor ! Is it so? Have you never betrayed yourself or your neighbor? Is there Pavlik Morozov among us?» . In the song of the same name by the rock group "Crematorium" Pavlik Morozov is presented as an indestructible evil, passing from one era to another:

Nowadays, the perception of Pavlik Morozov as a victim of political "games" of adults is becoming dominant. It must be emphasized that the overwhelming majority of those who argue are extremely politically biased and biased persons who are not interested in establishing an objective picture of what happened.

In the Soviet Union, Pavlik Morozov was considered to be a hero who suffered for an idea. During the perestroika years, history was revised and the pioneer was called a traitor. What really happened to Pavlik and why was he stabbed to death?

Events begin in 1932, when Pavlik Morozov testifies against his father in court. He confirms that his father, being the chairman of the village council, issued fake certificates to immigrants, appropriated the property of the dispossessed. He was sentenced to 10 years.

And some time later he was killed while walking in the forest. Here the data differ a little, according to one version, his own cousin killed him, according to another, his grandfather. Then the entire Morozov family was destroyed, except for the mother, who, by order of Krupskaya, was given an apartment in the Crimea. By the way, Pavlik's father returned from the camps and was even awarded for hard work. True, he had to move to another place.

Perestroika version

How was it really

In fact, this story has more questions than answers. Most researchers are inclined to believe that the name of Pavlik Morozov was used by the Soviet propaganda machine. What was needed was the image of a pioneer hero who suffered for the system and justice.

Pavlik really became a victim. The family had a difficult relationship, their father left them, lived with his mistress, drank. His mother held a grudge against him. It is assumed that the denunciation was her initiative, only she did not know how to write, she asked Pavlik, he could not refuse his mother. And when he was asked in court whether his father issued fake certificates, he answered in the affirmative. In fact, it was no secret to anyone.

Of course, the whole family - and grandmother, and grandfather, and uncles, aunts - were angry at Pavlik. And they could have faked his death. However, there is no hard evidence. Some researchers mention that Pavlik's brother idolized him, but at the same time suffered from a mental illness and could not control attacks of aggression. It is likely that the death of Pavlik was a tragic accident.

Now in the village of Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, a museum of Pavlik Morozov has been opened, and children carry notes with their desires and requests to his grave. They say that Pavlik helps them.

Now, perhaps, it is necessary to explain to young readers who we are talking about. And we knew from childhood who Pavlik Morozov was. All the preschool years of my life until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (when the name of Pavlik was replaced by new names), he was in our minds the main positive hero, a renowned fighter for Soviet power and for the collective farm system, who did not spare his own father, who deceived this power and this system.

Pavlik, according to Soviet ideologists, brought his father to a fair trial in September 1932.

Then, in perestroika times, Soviet history began to be revised. And this episode was also turned upside down (or upside down?). Pavlik Morozov was denounced as "Informer 001".

Maybe it's time to shake off the memory of these sentences and understand what happened in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province, in the family of the chairman of the local village council, Morozov, the father of five children, of whom the eldest, Pavlik, was 13?

My father was not sinless: he quietly appropriated the property confiscated from the dispossessed, and gave false certificates to special settlers sent into exile so that they could get out.

Did Pavlik know about this? He knew, as did everyone around him.

Did he take these "anti-Soviet" intrigues to heart? It is unlikely: the boy had reason to be offended by his father in addition to any politics - he left the family, lived with his mistress, drank. He reduced the upbringing of children to a single notation - there is nothing to go to school, you do not need a letter! And Pavlik wanted to learn.

Well, now to the point. Pavel did not write a denunciation of his father, but simply, in the course of the inquiry, confirmed the facts that were already known to everyone.

Father received a term (he sat, worked and returned ahead of schedule with an order for valiant work).

Pavlik Morozov is neither a hero nor a traitor. He is a victim of crazy times. Isn't it time to just forget this story?

And Pavel was declared a young hero of the Soviet state, who did not spare his own father for the sake of the triumph of the collective farm system.

His family did not forgive him for this. They killed him a year later. The main killer was a cousin, who was executed for this by the authorities as a sworn enemy of the Soviet regime.

Many years later, meticulous historians tried to involve members of the Morozov family in the next consideration of the case.

Relatives refused, and I understand them.

Nothing can be corrected in this woeful plot, and there were enough such plots in the terrible era of the Troubles.

Pavlik Morozov is neither a hero nor a traitor. He is a victim of crazy times.

Isn't it time to just forget this story?

And if you remember, then the story is not a hero and not a traitor, but a child innocently ruined and innocently glorified. It is immoral to use his fate to prove the horrors of the Soviet era. These horrors are enough without him. And, I'm afraid, enough in the future, if the next Troubles will cover us and all of humanity.

And Pavlik Morozov is better left alone. He suffered his own: he paid with his life for the gingerbread and for the whip of frenzied propaganda.

Peace be upon him.

All the post-Soviet years, it was difficult for me to do two things: it is easy to pronounce the word "scoop" as a sentence for the idiots who once lived in the USSR. I was there too, lived, consisted. And put something like this into context: "Another Pavlik Morozov has been found!" I can't and couldn't. For one simple reason. Just imagine how, in a cranberry swamp, a grandfather stabs his two grandchildren with a knife - thirteen-year-old Pavlik and his eight-year-old brother Fedya.

There is a classic version: Pavlik dispossessed his own father, handed him over to the OGPU, the old man Morozov could no longer forgive this and did away with his traitor grandson.

In the late 80s of the last century, another look at the tragedy of the Morozovs appeared. This version was once brought from a perestroika trip to Gerasimovka by my then colleague in Komsomolskaya Pravda Valery Khiltunen. Almost a hundred pages of text seemed not quite conclusive, somehow they did not sound even in the most daring newspaper of that time against the background of the general passion for the overthrow of idols.

Attention: imagine a teenager, in front of whose eyes a drunken father beats his mother more than once, then leaves her with four children altogether (Pavlik is the eldest, the whole household falls on him) and goes to live on the other side of the village with a young woman. What does collectivization and heroism have to do with it? The son somehow wanted to protect his mother and punish his father so that he would return to the family, while not drinking, not beating ... Any psychologist would call this family drama a classic. Be on duty at the teen helpline someday, and you will hear such things about cruelty and domestic violence!

Later I learned that in London in 1988 a book by the Soviet writer (now an American professor) Yuri Druzhnikov "Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov" was published. Now it has been published in Russia, and is often read and commented on extensively by the Internet community. The author did a great deal of documentary and research work to expose the myth, confirmed the drama of the Morozov family and offered his own version of the crime: the murder of unfortunate children was committed by the OGPU officers in order to raise a propaganda wave of mass indignation against the kulaks.

I do not know what kind of relationship there were in the Morozov family. I know only one thing, that the testimony of a minor child by all normal legislation cannot be interpreted against him. The society suffered from dislocations due to hunger, and in public opinion they forced a very boy to pay for collectivization.

The tragedy of Pavlik Morozov is that one system made him a martyr of an idea, the main pioneer of the country, while another system made him a young scammer, a traitor to his own father.

But, gentlemen, comrades! The fact (and not the version!) Is indisputable: in 1932, two children were killed. And for this modern, free, democratic society has not appointed the guilty. At the same time, as easily as the terminals - plus to minus, the understanding of the past changes. Always modern history serves actual truth rather than boring truth. Let historians study collectivization and write about the village of Gerasimovka and how just a boy was appointed a hero of that era.

In recent history, not a single human rights activist, not a single believer was horrified aloud by this crime, committed by whom? For what? Even if there are more complete answers to these questions, I still will not be able to mention in vain the names of innocently killed children.

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 did not let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, we only 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! Danila yelled...

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 Aleksey, he is 11 years old, said that on September 3 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 trousers 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 arm was also 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 the issuance of 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:

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:

Version of the prosecution

The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, fist Arseniy 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 used to collude," 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 bloody clothes, soaked but not washed by Ksenia (allegedly before that Danila had slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova).

Verdict of the Ural Regional Court

By the decision of the Ural Regional Court in the murder of Pavel Morozov and his brother Fyodor, their own grandfather Sergey (Trofim Morozov's father) and 19-year-old cousin Danila, as well as grandmother Xenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel's godfather - Arseniy Kulukanov, who was his uncle, were found guilty (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 informant. 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:

Criticism and rebuttals of Druzhnikov's claims

Outrage of brother and teacher

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 Mr. Druzhnikov's criticisms to his lack of knowledge of the 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 authorities of the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions did not find 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 Veronika Kononenko, editor of the department of the magazine Man and Law, 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 relation to Kulukanov Arseny Ignatievich and Morozova Xenia Ilyinichna to change: 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.

The Prosecutor General's Office, which is engaged in the rehabilitation of victims of political repression, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov is purely criminal in nature, and the killers are not subject to political rehabilitation. 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 were allowed to feed on the dollar trough 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 a 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 still bear this name now: in Perm and Krasnokamsk (streets), in Ufa (street and alley), Tula (street and passage), Ashe - the regional center Chelyabinsk region,

Pavlik Morozov is a legendary person around whom there is always a lot of controversy. These disputes do not stop at the present time, since it is still impossible to answer the main question of who Pavlik Morozov is - a hero or a traitor. There is little information about what this boy did and what his fate is, so it’s impossible to figure out this story until the end.

There is only the official version of his date of birth and how the boy died. All other events remain an occasion for discussions about the act of this pioneer to continue.

In contact with

Origin, life

It is known that Pavel Trofimovich Morozov was born in mid-November 1918. His father, Trofim Sergeevich, came to the village Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province in 1910. He belonged to ethnic Belarusians, therefore, in his own way origin he belonged to the Stolypin settlers.

The family of Trofim Sergeevich Morozov and Tatyana Semyonovna Baidakova, who lived in the Turin district, had five children:

1. Paul.
2. George.
3. Fedor.
4. Novel.
5. Alexei.

There is information that the paternal grandfather was once a gendarme, and the grandmother was known for a long time as a horse thief. Their acquaintance was unusual: when my grandmother was in prison, her grandfather guarded her. There they met and then they began to live together.

In the family of the pioneer, besides him, there were four more brothers. But George died as a baby. It is known that the third son, Fedor, was born around 1924. The rest of the brothers' birth dates are unknown.

family tragedy

According to reliable information, Trofim Sergeevich until 1931 was the chairman of the village council of Gerasimovka. Soon after childbirth he left his wife and children and went to live with a neighbor. But despite the fact that Antonina Amosova became his civil wife, Trofim Morozov continued to beat his wife and children. Pavlik's teacher also spoke about this.

Grandfather Sergey also hated his daughter-in-law, as she was against living in one, common household. Tatyana Semyonovna insisted on the division as soon as she appeared in this family. Not only the father did not love his family and did not treat her respectfully, but the grandfather and grandmother behaved in this way towards their grandchildren as if they were strangers. Alexei, the youngest of the brothers, recalled that they never treated their grandchildren with anything, they were never friendly and affectionate towards them.

They were also negative about going to school. They also had a grandson Danila, whom they did not let into school. Constantly, both Tatyana and her children were told that Danila would be the owner even without a letter, but Tatyana's children had only one fate - become farmhands. At the same time, they did not skimp on rude expressions and, according to Alexei Morozov, Pavlik's younger brother, they even called them "puppies."

Everyone in the village lived in poverty, but Pavlik Morozov liked to go to school. Despite the fact that after the departure of his father from the family, he became an older man, and all the chores for the peasant economy fell on his childish shoulders, the pioneer still sought to learn something.

He was on good terms with his teacher so he often referred to her. He missed many lessons as he worked in the fields and at home, but he always took books to read. But even this was difficult for him, since there was always no time. He always tried to catch up with the material that he missed. He studied well. The desire to learn, according to the teacher L. Isakova, the boy was strong. Pavlik even tried to teach his mother to read and write.

The fate and crime of Trofim Morozov

As soon as Trofim Sergeevich Morozov became chairman of the village council, he soon began to use power for selfish purposes. By the way, this is also mentioned in detail in the criminal case that was opened against Trofim Morozov. There were even witnesses the fact that, using his power, confiscating some things from dispossessed families, he began to appropriate them for himself.

In addition, he, realizing that the special settlers needed certificates, gave them out for a fee, speculating on them. For their crimes Trofim Sergeevich Morozov was convicted in 1931. By this time, he had already been removed from the post of chairman of the village council. For all his crimes, he received 10 years.

The accusation stated that he "befriended the kulaks", "hid their farms from taxation", and then, when he was no longer in the village council, he contributed to "the flight of special settlers by selling documents." Fake certificates to people who were dispossessed gave them the opportunity to leave the place where they were exiled.

It is also known how later, after the trial, the life of Trofim Morozov developed. He, as a prisoner, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Having worked hard for 3 years, he returned to the village of Gerasimovka with a reward. For shock and excellent work he was awarded the order. And after a while he moved to Tyumen and settled there.

The fate of the family of Pavlik Morozov

Pavlik's mother looked very pretty woman. This was remembered by all the contemporaries of this tragic story. By nature, Tatyana was simple and kind. Of course, she was afraid of her ex-husband, and there was no one to protect her. Therefore, in order not to meet with her ex-husband and his relatives anymore, after the murder of her sons, she left.

It is known that only after the end of the Great Patriotic War, she settled permanently in the city of Alupka, where she died in 1983. There were several versions about how the life of the brothers Pavlik Morozov turned out. Yes, Roman younger brother, according to one version, died at the front. But there is another version: in the war he was seriously wounded, but survived and became disabled. Therefore, he died shortly after the end of the war.

All versions about the fate of the brothers claim one thing: Alexei became the only successor to the Morozov family. But his fate was not easy either, because during the war he was captured and for a long time he was considered an enemy of the people. He was married, in this marriage two children were born:

1. Denis.
2. Paul.

Alexey Morozov did not live long with his wife and soon after the divorce he settled in his mother's house in Alupka. The fact that he was the brother of Pavlik Morozov, Alexey tried to never tell anyone. For the first time, he voiced this only at the time when, at the end of 1980, during Perestroika, they began to talk badly about his brother.

The official version of Pavlik Morozov's story

At school, the pioneer studied well and was a ringleader and leader among his peers. Wikipedia says about Pavlik Morozov that he independently organized a pioneer detachment in the village, which became the first in Gerasimovka. By official version the boy, despite his young age, believed in communist ideas.

In 1930, according to historical data, he betrayed his father and informed him that he was forging certificates to the kulaks about their dispossession. As a result, because of this denunciation, Pavlik's father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years. Despite the fact that he was released three years later, there is a version that he was shot.

Currently, there are several assumptions as to why Pavlik Morozov denounced his father, because it is still impossible to decide who this pioneer is - a hero or a traitor.

Myths about the act of a pioneer

There are several myths about what really happened. All of them differ from the main official version:

1. Version of the writer Vladimir Bushin.
2. The version of the journalist Yuri Druzhnikov.

Vladimir Bushin was sure that there was no political intent in Pavlik's act. He wasn't going to betray him. According to the writer, the boy hoped that his father could be scared a little, and he would return to the family. After all, the boy was the eldest in the family, and his mother needed help. Pavlik did not think at all about what the consequences would be.

As the writer assures, the boy was not even a pioneer, and the pioneer organization in his village appeared much later. In some portraits, Pavlik is depicted in a pioneer tie, but, as it turns out, he was also completed much later.

There is a version that Pavlik did not write any denunciations about his father at all. And against Trofim, who was detained for those fictitious certificates that happened to be in the possession of the Chekists, his ex-wife Tatyana testified at the trial.

Yuri Druzhnikov, a historian, writer and journalist, claimed in his book that the child wrote a denunciation of his father on behalf of his mother. And it was not his father's relatives who killed him, but an OGPU agent. But later it was proved by the court that, nevertheless, the reprisal against the boy was arranged by his uncle and grandfather. Aleksei Morozov vehemently opposed this version. He was able to prove that his brother was not a traitor, but just a boy whose life was tragic. He was able to prove that his relatives specially went to the forest to kill Pavlusha.

tragic death

For his deed, the boy paid with his life. When, after the trial of his father, he went to the forest to pick berries, he was slaughtered there along with his younger brother. It happened on September 3rd. The mother at that time left for Tavda to sell the calf. The children wanted to spend the night in the forest. They knew that no one would look for them.

And four days later, one of the local residents found their corpses. There were numerous stab wounds on the body. By this time, they were already looking for them, because the day before the mother returned home and, not finding the boys, immediately told the police. The whole village was looking for them.

Aleksey, the middle brother, told his mother, and then confirmed this in court, that on September 3 he saw Danila, who was walking from the forest. When the boy, who was already 11 years old, asked if he had seen his brothers, he just laughed. The child also remembered what Danila Morozov was wearing:

1. Woven trousers.
2. Black shirt.

When the house of my grandfather, Sergei Sergeevich Morozov, was searched, these things were found. As the mother of slaughtered children recalled, grandmother Aksinya Morozova, meeting her on the street, spoke with a grin about slaughtered children.

Upon discovery of the bodies of children, reports of examination of the bodies were drawn up, which were signed:

1. Local policeman Titov Yakov.
2. P. Makarov, paramedic.
3. Pyotr Ermakov, witness.
4. Abraham of the Book, understood.
5. Ivan Barkin, witness.

In the first act of the crime scene inspection, it is written that Pavel was lying not far from the road, and a red bag was put on his head. He received several blows. The fatal blow was to the stomach. Scattered cranberries lay next to the body, and a basket lay a little further on. The shirt on the child was torn, and a huge blood stain spread on the back. The boy's blue eyes were open and his mouth was closed.

The corpse of the second boy was a little further from his brother. Fedor was hit on the head with a stick. First, most likely, he was hit in the left temple, and then they stabbed him in the stomach. There was a bloody streak on the baby's right cheek, his hand was cut with a knife to the bone. From the incision on the abdomen, which fell above the navel, the internal organs were visible.

The second act of examination was already done by paramedic Markov after he washed the bodies and examined them. So, the paramedic counted four knife wounds on Pavlik:

• On the chest on the right side.
• Substratum area.
• Left side.
• From the right side.

According to the paramedic, the fourth wound was fatal for the boy. He had another stab wound on the thumb of his left hand. Most likely, the boy was trying to defend himself somehow. The Morozov brothers were buried in Gerasimovka.

Trial

When the events of this crime were restored, it turned out that the initiator of this murder was Arseniy Kulukanov, a fist. He learned that the boys had gone into the forest, and offered their cousin to kill Pavel, giving 5 rubles for this. Danila went home, started harrowing, and then, passing the conversation on to his grandfather Sergei, took a knife and went into the forest. Grandfather went with him.

As soon as they met the boys, Danila immediately stabbed Pavlik with a knife. Fedya tried to run away, but his grandfather detained him, and Danila stabbed him too. When Fedor was already dead and Danila was convinced of this, he again returned to Pavlik and struck him a few more blows.

The murder of the Morozov brothers was widely publicized, and the authorities used it to finally crack down on the kulaks and organize collective farms.

The trial of the boys' killers took place in one of the clubs in Tavda, and it was indicative. All the accusations were confirmed by Danila Morozov himself. The rest of the defendants in this case pleaded not guilty. The following items were evidence:

• Economic knife of Sergey Morozov.
• The bloody clothes of Danila Morozov, which Alexei described. But the man himself claimed that he slaughtered a calf in these clothes for Pavlik's mother.

By court decision, the grandfather and cousin of the boys were guilty of this crime. And the uncle and godfather of Pavlik Arseniy Kulukanov was announced as the organizer. Grandmother Xenia was declared an accomplice. The verdict was harsh: Arseny and Danila were shot, and grandma and grandfather died in prison.

The act of Pavlik Morozov in literature.

The Soviet authorities regarded the boy's act as a feat that he accomplished for the good of the people. Hiding some of the facts of his life, the pioneer was made a hero and a role model. Therefore, literature could not pass by this act.

So, already in 1934, Sergei Mikhalkov and Franz Szabo created the touching “Song of Pavlik Morozov”. At the same time, Vitaly Gubarev wrote a story about a boy-hero for younger children. In the post-war period, poems were written about the brave boy by Stepan Shchipachev and Elena Khorinskaya. Children at school learned a poem about him by heart.

Today, there are many opinions about Pavlik's act, but this story has not yet been fully disclosed. And even in the archives there are many serious contradictions. Therefore, the question of what he did - a feat or a betrayal - remains open.