Pavlik Morozov was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Turin district, Tobolsk province, to Trofim Sergeevich Morozov and Tatyana Semyonovna Baidakova. My father was an ethnic Belarusian and came from Stolypin settlers who settled in Gerasimovka in 1910. Pavlik was the eldest of five children, he had four brothers: Georgy (died in infancy), Fedor (born approximately 1924), Roman and Alexey.
Pavlik's father was the chairman of the Gerasimovsky village council until 1931. According to the recollections of Gerasimovites, soon after taking this position, Trofim Morozov began to use it for personal gain, which is mentioned in detail in the criminal case filed against him subsequently. According to witness testimony, Trofim began to appropriate for himself things confiscated from the dispossessed. In addition, he speculated on certificates issued to special settlers.
Soon, Pavel’s father abandoned his family (his wife and four children) and began cohabiting 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. Pavlik’s grandfather also hated his daughter-in-law because she did not want to live in the same household with him, but insisted on a division. According to Alexei (Paul's brother), father “I loved only myself and vodka”, did not spare his wife and sons, not like other immigrants from whom “I tore three skins for forms with stamps”. The father’s parents 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. They never treated me to anything or greeted me. My grandfather didn’t let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, all we heard was: “You’ll get by without a letter, you’ll be the owner, and Tatyana’s puppies will be your farmhands.”.
In 1931, the father, who no longer held office, was sentenced to 10 years for “being the chairman of the village council, he was friends with the kulaks, sheltered their farms from taxation, and upon leaving the village council, he contributed to the escape of special settlers by selling documents”. He was charged with issuing fake certificates to dispossessed people about their membership in the Gerasimovsky village council, which gave them the opportunity to leave their place of exile. Trofim Morozov, while in prison, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and, after working for three years, returned home with an order for shock work, and then settled in Tyumen.
According to Pavlik Morozov’s teacher L.P. Isakova, cited by Veronica Kononenko, Pavlik’s mother was “pretty-faced 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 place. Ultimately, after World War II, she settled in Alupka, where she died in 1983. According to one version, Pavlik’s younger brother Roman died at the front during the war; according to another, he survived, but became disabled and died shortly after its end. Alexey became the only child of the Morozovs who got 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 against Pavlik began at the height of Perestroika
LIFE
Pavel’s teacher recalled poverty in the village of Gerasimovka:
The school she was in charge of worked in two shifts. At that time we had no idea about radio or electricity; in the evenings we sat by a torch and saved kerosene. There was no ink either; they wrote with beet juice. Poverty in general was appalling. When we, teachers, started going from house to house to enroll children in school, it turned out that many of them didn’t have any clothes. The children were sitting naked on the beds, covering themselves with some rags. The kids climbed into the oven and warmed themselves in the ash. We organized a reading hut, but there were almost no books, and local newspapers arrived very rarely. To some now Pavlik seems like a boy in clean clothes stuffed with slogans. pioneer uniform. And because of our poverty this form I didn’t even see it.
Forced to provide for his family in such difficult conditions, Pavel nevertheless invariably showed a desire to learn. According to his teacher L.P. Isakova:
He was very eager to learn, he borrowed books from me, but he had no time to read, and he often missed lessons because of work in the fields and housework. Then I tried to catch up, I did well, and I also taught my mother to read and write...
After his father left for another woman, all the worries about the peasant farm fell on Pavel - he became the eldest man in the Morozov family.
Murder of Pavlik and his younger brother Fyodor
Pavlik and his younger brother went into the forest to pick berries. They were found dead from stab wounds. From the indictment:
Morozov Pavel, being a pioneer throughout the current year, led a devoted, active struggle against the class enemy, the kulaks and their subkulakists, spoke at public meetings, exposed kulak tricks and stated this repeatedly...
Pavel had a very difficult relationship with his father's relatives. M.E. Chulkova describes the following episode:
…One day Danila hit Pavel’s hand with a shaft so hard that it began to swell. Mother Tatyana Semyonovna stood between them, and Danila hit her in the face so that blood came out of her mouth. The grandmother came running and shouted:
Kill this snotty communist!
Let's skin them! - Danila yelled...
On September 2, Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, planning to spend the night there (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell a calf). On September 6, Dmitry Shatrakov found their corpses in an aspen forest.
The brothers' mother describes the events of these days in a conversation with the investigator as follows:
On September 2, I left for Tavda, and on September 3, Pavel and Fyodor went into the forest to pick 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 a policeman, who gathered people, and people went into the forest to look for my children. They were soon found stabbed to death.
My middle son Alexey, he is 11 years old, said that on September 3rd he saw Danila walking very quickly out of the forest, and our dog was running after him. Alexey asked if he had seen Pavel and Fyodor, to which Danila did not answer anything and only laughed. He was dressed in homespun pants and a black shirt - Alexey remembered this well. It was these pants and shirt that were found on Sergei Sergeevich Morozov during the search.
I cannot 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 you meat, and now you eat it!”
The first act of examining the bodies, drawn up by local police officer Yakov Titov, in the presence of paramedic of the Gorodishchevo medical post P. Makarov, witnesses Pyotr Ermakov, Abraham Knigi and Ivan Barkin, reports that:
Pavel Morozov lay 10 meters from the road, with his head to the east. There is a red bag on his head. Pavel was dealt a fatal blow to the stomach. The second blow was delivered to the chest near the heart, under which there were scattered cranberries. One basket stood near Paul, the other was thrown aside. His shirt is torn in two places, and there is a purple blood stain on his back. Hair color is light brown, face is white, eyes are blue, open, mouth closed. There are two birch trees at the feet (...) The corpse of Fyodor Morozov was located fifteen meters from Pavel in a swamp and shallow aspen forest. Fedor was hit in the left temple with a stick, his right cheek was stained with blood. The knife dealt a fatal blow to the abdomen above the navel, where the intestines came out, and also cut the arm with a knife to the bone.
The second inspection report, made by the city paramedic Markov after washing the bodies, states that:
Pavel Morozov has one superficial wound measuring 4 centimeters on the chest on the right side in the area of the 5-6th rib, a second superficial wound in the epigastric region, a third wound from the left side in the stomach, subcostal area measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and the fourth wound on the right side (from the Poupart 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 erected on the grave hill, and a cross was buried next to it with the inscription: “On September 3, 1932, two Morozov brothers died from the evil of a man from a sharp knife - Pavel Trofimovich, born in 1918, and Fyodor Trofimovich.”
Trial of the murder of Pavlik Morozov
During the investigation of the murder, its close connection with the previous case against Pavlik’s father, Trofim Morozov, became clear.
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 have seen this, because his father had not been married for a long time lived with his family). According to Druzhnikov, in the murder case it is noted that “On November 25, 1931, Pavel Morozov submitted a statement to the investigative authorities that his father Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council and being associated with local kulaks, was engaged in forging documents and selling them to kulaks - special settlers." The statement was related to 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 of the following year.
In fact, in the indictment for the murder of the Morozovs, investigator Elizar Vasilyevich Shepelev stated that “Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigative authorities on November 25, 1931.” In an interview with journalist Veronica Kononenko and senior justice adviser Igor Titov, Shepelev said:
I can’t understand why on earth I wrote all this; there is no evidence in the case file that the boy contacted the investigative authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. I probably meant that Pavel gave evidence to the judge when Trofim was tried... It turns out that because of my inaccurately written words the boy is now accused of informing?! But is it a crime to help the investigation or act as a witness in court? And is it possible to blame a person for anything because of one phrase?
Trofim Morozov and other village council chairmen were arrested on November 26 and 27, the day after the “denunciation.” Based on the results of a journalistic investigation by Evgenia Medyakova, published in the Ural magazine in 1982, it was found that Pavel Morozov was not involved in his father’s arrest. On November 22, 1931, a certain Zvorykin was detained at the Tavda station. He was found to have two blank forms with stamps from the Gerasimovsky Village Council, for which, according to him, he paid 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 Gorodishche general store.” Medyakova also writes that “Tavda and Gerasimovka have more than once received requests from the construction of Magnitogorsk, from many factories, factories and collective farms about whether the citizens (a number of names) are really residents of Gerasimovka.” Consequently, verification of holders of false certificates began. “And most importantly, Medyakova did not find the boy’s testimony in the investigative case! Tatyana Semyonovna’s testimony is there, but Pavlik’s is not! Because he did not make any “statements to the investigative authorities!”
Pavel, following his mother, spoke in court, but in the end was stopped by the judge due to his youth. In the case of Morozov’s murder it is said: “During the trial, son Pavel outlined all the details about his father, his tricks.” The speech delivered by Pavlik is known in 12 versions, mostly dating back to the book by journalist Pyotr Solomein. In a recording from the archive of Solomein himself, this accusatory speech is conveyed as follows:
Uncles, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say about 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 like a mountain, and I, not as a son, but as a pioneer, ask that my father be brought to justice , because in the future I will not give others the habit of hiding the kulak and clearly violating the party line, and I will also add that my father will now appropriate kulak property, took the bed of the kulukanov Arseny Kulukanov (husband of T. Morozov’s sister and Pavel’s godfather) and wanted to take it from him a haystack, but Kulukanov’s fist did not give him the hay, but said, let him take it better...
The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, fist Arseny Kulukanov, having learned about the boys going out to pick berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 5 rubles and asking him to invite Sergei Morozov, “with whom Kulukanov had previously conspired,” to also kill him. Having returned from Kulukanov and having finished harrowing (that is, harrowing, loosening the soil), Danila went home and conveyed the conversation to his grandfather Sergei. The latter, seeing that Danila was taking a knife, left the house without saying a word and went with Danila, telling him: “Let’s go kill, don’t be afraid.” Having found 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. " After making sure that Fedya was dead, Danila returned to Pavel and stabbed him several more times with a knife.».
The murder of Morozov was widely publicized as a manifestation of kulak terror (against a member of the pioneer organization) and served as the reason for widespread repression on an all-Union scale; in Gerasimovka itself it finally made it possible to organize a collective farm (before that, all attempts were thwarted 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 charges; Sergei Morozov behaved contradictorily, either confessing or denying guilt. All other defendants denied guilt. The main evidence was a utility knife found on Sergei Morozov, and Danila’s bloody clothes, soaked but not washed by Ksenia (allegedly, Danila had previously slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova).
The Ural Worker correspondent V. Mor presented the version of the prosecution as generally accepted. In addition, a similar version was put forward in an article by Vitaly Gubarev in Pionerskaya Pravda.
Verdict of the Ural Regional Court
By the decision of the Ural Regional Court, their own grandfather Sergei (father of Trofim Morozov) and 19-year-old cousin Danil, as well as grandmother Ksenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel’s godfather Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle, were found guilty of the murder of Pavel Morozov and his brother Fyodor (as a village kulak - as the initiator and organizer of the murder). After the trial, Arseniy Kulukanov and Danila Morozov were shot, eighty-year-old Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison. Pavlik’s other uncle, Arseny Silin, was also accused of complicity in the murder, but during the trial he was acquitted.
According to the statements of the writer Yuri Druzhnikov, who published the book “Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” in the UK in 1987, many circumstances related to the life of Pavel Morozov are distorted by propaganda and are controversial
In particular, Druzhnikov questions the idea 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 of political terror).
Druzhnikov claims that by testifying against his father, Pavlik deserved to be in the village "universal hatred"; they began to call him “Pashka the Kumanist” (communist). Druzhnikov considers the official statements that Pavel actively helped identify "bread squeezers", those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet regime, etc. According to the author, according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not "a serious informer", because “reporting is, you know, a serious job, but he was such a nit, a petty dirty trick”. According to Druzhnikov, only two such cases were documented in the murder case. "denunciation".
He considers the behavior of the alleged murderers illogical, who did not take any measures to hide the traces of the crime (they did not drown the corpses in the swamp, throwing them near the road; they did not wash bloody clothes in time; they did not clean the knife from traces of blood, putting it in the place where they look first during a search). All this is especially strange, considering 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 assistant commissioner of the OGPU Spiridon Kartashov and Pavel’s cousin - informant Ivan Potupchik. In this regard, the author describes a document that, according to him, he discovered in the materials of case No. 374 (about the murder of the Morozov brothers). This paper was drawn up by Kartashov and represents the protocol of the interrogation of Potupchik as a witness in the case of the murder of Pavel and Fedor. 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 investigation. The corpses were ordered to be buried before the arrival of the investigator without an examination. Journalists also sat on stage as prosecutors, talking about the political importance of shooting kulaks. The lawyer accused his clients of murder and left amid applause. Different sources report different methods of murder, the prosecutor and the judge were confused about the facts. The murder weapon was a knife found in the house with traces of blood, but Danila was cutting 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 innocent people in November 1932 was the signal for massacres of peasants throughout the country.
After the release of Druzhnikov’s book, Veronica Kononenko spoke in the newspaper “Soviet Russia” and the magazine “Man and Law” with harsh criticism of this literary investigation, assessing Druzhnikov’s book as slanderous and full of fraudulently collected information. In support, she cited a letter from Alexei Morozov, the brother of the late Pavel Morozov, according to which Pavel’s teacher Z. A. Kabin wanted to sue Druzhnikov in an international court for distorting her memories.
What kind of trial was held over my brother? It's a shame and scary. The magazine called my brother an informer. This is a lie! Pavel always fought openly. Why is he being insulted? Has our family suffered little grief? Who is being bullied? Two of my brothers were killed. The third, Roman, came from the front as an invalid and died young. During the war I was slandered as an enemy of the people. He served ten years in a camp. And then they rehabilitated. And now the slander against Pavlik. How to withstand all this? They doomed me to torture worse than in the camps. It’s good that my mother didn’t live to see these days... I’m writing, but the tears are choking me. It seems that Pashka is again standing defenseless on the road. ...The editor of "Ogonyok" Korotich on the radio station "Svoboda" said that my brother is a son of a bitch, which means that my mother is too... Yuri Izrailevich Alperovich-Druzhnikov got into our family, drank tea with his mother, sympathized with us, and then published London, a vile book - a clot of such disgusting lies and slander that, after reading it, I had a second heart attack. Z. A. Kabina also fell ill, she kept wanting to sue the author in international court, but where could she - Alperovich lives in Texas and chuckles - try to get him, the teacher’s pension is not enough. Chapters from the book “The Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” by this scribbler were replicated by many newspapers and magazines, no one takes my protests into account, no one needs the truth about my brother... Apparently, there’s only one thing left for me to do - pour gasoline on myself, and that’s the end of it!
Druzhnikov’s words contradict the memories of Pavel’s first teacher, Larisa Pavlovna Isakova: “I didn’t have time to organize the pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then; Zoya Kabina created it after me. One day I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it on Pavel, and he ran home joyfully. And at home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. [..] The commune fell apart, and my husband was beaten half to death by fists. Ustinya Potupchik saved me and warned me that Kulakanov and his company were going to be killed. [..] It’s probably since then that Pavlik hated Kulakanova; he was the first to join the pioneers when the detachment was organized.. Journalist V.P. Kononenko, with reference to 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”
According to an article by Vladimir Bushin in the newspaper Zavtra, Druzhnikov’s version that the killers were “a certain Kartashev and Potupchik,” the first of whom was an “OGPU detective,” is slanderous. Bushin refers to Veronica Kononenko, who found “Spiridon Nikitich Kartashov himself” and Pavel Morozov’s brother, Alexey. Pointing out that Druzhnikov’s real name is Alperovich, Bushin claims that in addition to using the “beautiful Russian pseudonym Druzhnikov,” he “ingratiated himself into the trust” of Pavel Morozov’s former teacher Larisa Pavlovna Isakova, using another name - his editorial colleague I.M. Achildieva. Along with asserting Kartashov’s non-involvement in the OGPU, Bushin accuses Alperovich-Druzhnikov of deliberate distortions and manipulation of facts to suit his views and beliefs.
In 2005, Oxford University professor Catriona Kelly published Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero. Dr Kelly argued in the ensuing controversy that "although there are traces of silence and concealment of minor facts by OGPU workers, there is no reason to believe that the murder itself was provoked by them.”
Yuri Druzhnikov stated that Kelly used his work not only in acceptable references, but also by repeating the composition of the book, the selection of details, and 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 Soviet official materials unreliable, but used them when it was beneficial to bolster his case. According to Catriona Kelly, Druzhnikov published, instead of a scientific presentation of criticism of her book, a “denunciation” with the assumption of Kelly’s connection with the “organs.” Dr. Kelly did not find much difference between the books' conclusions 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 inquiries of Alexander Liskin
Alexander Alekseevich Liskin took part in an additional investigation of the case in 1967 and requested murder case No. N-7825-66 from the archives of the KGB of the USSR. In an article published between 1998 and 2001, Liskin pointed out the “massacre” and “falsification” with sides of Inspector Titov, revealed during the investigation. In 1995, Liskin requested official certificates about the alleged criminal record of Pavlik’s father, but the internal affairs bodies of the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions did not find such information. Liskin suggested checking the “secret corners of 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 “Man and Law” Veronica Kononenko regarding the witness nature of Pavlik’s speech at his father’s trial and the absence of secret denunciations.
e with the materials of additional verification of case No. 374 was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which decided to deny rehabilitation to the alleged killers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fedor.
Opinions on the Supreme Court decision
According to Boris Sopelnyak, “at the height of perestroika hysteria [..] the so-called ideologists who were allowed in to the dollar trough tried most of all [to knock out love for the Motherland from young people].” According to Sopelnyak, the Prosecutor General's Office carefully reviewed 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 give the decision to her daughter.
On November 14, 1918, a boy was born in the Urals who was destined to become the first pioneer hero of the USSR, and one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.
For modern Russian youth, the word “pioneers” sounds about the same as “dinosaurs”. Young Russians know only by hearsay about the existence of a mass children's organization in the Soviet Union, in whose work almost all schoolchildren, starting from the 3rd grade, were involved.
The first hero of the pioneers
At the same time, almost everyone over 30 has personally experienced this special layer of Soviet culture associated with the ideological education of youth.
The Soviet pioneers, in addition to the adults whose examples they were encouraged to follow, had their own heroes - teenagers with red ties who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their own ideals, beliefs and in the name of the Motherland.
Pavlik Morozov (in the center, with a book) with a group of fellow practitioners. Photo: Public Domain
The beginning of the gallery of pioneer heroes was, of course, Pavlik Morozov. Unlike many others, Pavel Trofimovich Morozov remained in folklore, although the fame of a “traitor to his father” that has stuck to him in no way reflects the real state of affairs.
According to the canonical Soviet version, Pavlik Morozov was one of the organizers of the first pioneer detachment in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. In 1931, at the height of the fight against the kulaks, 13-year-old Pavel testified against his father, Trofim Morozov, who, as chairman of the village council, collaborated with the kulaks, helped them evade taxes, and also hid grain that was to be handed over to the state. Based on this testimony of the principled pioneer, Trofim Morozov was sentenced to 10 years.
In September 1932, kulaks, among whom were Pavel’s grandfather and the boy’s cousin, brutally killed the pioneer and his younger brother Fedor in the forest.
In the case of the murder of Pavlik Morozov, four people were convicted - the grandparents of the dead boys, as well as a cousin Danila and godfather Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle. The direct perpetrator of the crime, Danila Morozov, and one of the “customers” of the murder, Arseny Kulukanov, were shot, and the elderly Ksenia And Sergei Morozov sentenced to prison. Interestingly, one of the accused, Arseny Silin, was completely acquitted.
If in Soviet times Pavlik Morozov was presented as an “unbending fighter for ideals,” then during the perestroika period critics characterized him as “an informer who betrayed his own father.” The circumstances of the pioneer's death were also questioned.
What is known today?
Father and son
Pavlik Morozov was indeed one of the first pioneers in the village of Gerasimovka. The village was split - on the one hand, the extreme poverty of some, on the other, the prosperity of the so-called “kulaks”, opponents of Soviet power, which included some of Pavel Morozov’s relatives.
Pavel's father, Trofim Morozov, became the head of the Gerasimovsky village council, and in this position left a very bad reputation for himself. He was noted for what is now called “corruption” - he appropriated the property of dispossessed people, helped wealthy fellow villagers evade taxes, and speculated on certificates issued to special settlers.
Portrait of Pavlik Morozov, created on the basis of the only known photograph in which he was captured. Photo: Public DomainPavel could not experience warm feelings for his father also because Trofim Morozov abandoned his family, leaving for another woman. Paul's mother Tatiana, was left with four children in her arms, virtually without a livelihood. Trofim's parents, Sergei and Ksenia Morozov, hated Tatyana because she once refused to live in a common house with them and insisted on a division. They did not have warm feelings for Tatyana’s children either, calling them, according to the recollections of Pavel’s brother, Alexei Morozov, nothing more than “puppies.”
And after Pavlik joined the pioneers, in the eyes of his grandfather he completely turned into the main object of hatred.
At the same time, Pavel himself had no time for pioneer training: after his father left, he became the main man in the family and helped his mother with the housework.
In 1931, the notoriety of Trofim Morozov, who had already left the post of chairman of the village council, reached the ears of the competent authorities. A case of abuse was opened against Morozov. At the trial, Tatyana Morozova gave testimony about her husband’s unlawful acts known to her, and Pavel only confirmed his mother’s words, and was stopped by the judge, who did not consider it necessary to demand extensive testimony from the minor. As a result, Trofim Morozov was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Massacre
There is conflicting information about his future fate. “Whistleblowers” of Pavlik Morozov claim that his father was allegedly executed in the camp in 1938, but there is no evidence of this. According to other sources, Trofim Morozov, having served his sentence, settled in the Tyumen region, where he lived until the end of his days, trying not to advertise his connection with Pavlik Morozov.
Considering that Tatyana Morozova gave the main testimony against her ex-husband, Trofim’s relatives took revenge not on Pavlik, but on her. On September 2, 1932, Tatyana left on business, and the next day Pavel and his younger brother Fedor went into the forest to pick berries. The father's relatives considered this an opportunity, and, lying in wait for the boys in the forest, they dealt with them.
Pavel was stabbed in the stomach and heart, and his brother Fyodor, who tried to escape, was first hit in the temple with a stick and then finished off with a knife in the stomach.
The search for the children began on September 5, upon the return of the mother. Already on September 6, the bodies were found in the forest. The killers did not particularly try to hide the fact of the massacre. Pavel’s mother, Tatyana Morozova, later recalled that when the bodies of the brutally murdered children were brought to the village, Ksenia Morozova, the mother of her ex-husband and the grandmother of the victims, told her with a grin: “Tatiana, we gave you meat, and now you eat it!”
The investigation into the murder made it possible to fully prove the guilt of the suspects. Later attempts to see the murder of the Morozov brothers as a “provocation of the OGPU” do not stand up to criticism.
In 1999, representatives of the Memorial movement and relatives of the Morozov brothers convicted of murder tried to get the sentence reviewed. However, the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, having examined the case, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov was purely criminal in nature, and the killers were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds.
Hero and victim
So, the pioneer Pavlik Morozov, objectively speaking, was not “an informer and a traitor to his father.” Pavel's father, Trofim Morozov, was essentially a corrupt official and an extremely dishonest person who abandoned his own children to their fate.
Reproduction of the painting “Pavlik Morozov” by artist Nikita Chebakov (1952). Photo: Public DomainI really don’t want to say anything about the relatives of Pavel and Fyodor Morozov, who, out of revenge, organized and carried out the brutal murder of minors - everything is said about them in the verdict, the validity of which was confirmed by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office.
The whole problem with Pavlik Morozov is that at the height of acute confrontation in society in the early 1930s, his tragic death became a banner for the authorities, a symbol of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals and values.
Half a century later, another political force with an anti-Soviet orientation would, with no less zeal, use Pavlik’s tragic fate for its own purposes, throwing mud at the teenager’s memory.
From the point of view of his era, Pavlik Morozov was a teenager with strong convictions who opposed the enemies of the existing system and was killed for it. From today's point of view. Pavlik Morozov is a teenager with strong views on life, who, as a law-abiding citizen, testified in court against a local administration employee mired in corruption, for which he was killed by criminals.
Pavlik helps
After the death of two sons, 13-year-old Pavel and 8-year-old Fedor, Tatyana Morozova left Gerasimovka forever. Her other children also suffered a difficult fate - Grisha died in childhood, Roman fought with the Nazis and died from his wounds after the war, and Alexey was condemned as an “enemy of the people”, spent several years in prison and was only later rehabilitated.
Pavlik Morozov's mother was lucky - she died before perestroika, but Alexei Morozov had to fully feel the streams of dirt and outright lies that befell his brother during the period of democratic changes.
The paradox is that in Pavel’s homeland in the village of Gerasimovka, where the young pioneer, according to whistleblowers, “betrayed and snitched,” his memory is treated extremely carefully. Both the monument to Pavlik and his museum have been preserved there. Local residents come to the monument and leave notes with their deepest desires. They say Pavlik helps them.
The war begins Having returned to Moscow, I was busy arranging my affairs for some time. As I already mentioned, I repaid my debt and moved to a new apartment. My new temporary base was my aunt’s apartment in Butovo. My cousin Lena was in charge of her apartment and she invited me to occupy the hall of their apartment. My Aunt Tamara didn't mind either. My sister was a fifth-year student at that time and, like many young people, everything I did was very interesting to her. I moved my modest belongings to this apartment and after a while I went to Kharkov again in my car. I needed to resolve several matters in this city and I wanted to at least put my apartment in order. After I received a one-room apartment in September 1988, I did not live in it even for one day. And there were several reasons for this, one of which was that in the new apartment it was necessary, first of all, to make repairs, since it was necessary to re-lay the linoleum, repaint the walls and ceiling, etc. and so on. Therefore, I decided to put it in order after all. To do this, I purchased the necessary building materials and the only thing left to do is take it and do it. Therefore, after I settled my affairs with moving to a new “base” in Moscow, I went to Kharkov in my Mercedes and after several days in this city, I flew to my homeland just before the New Year. My parents were very happy about my arrival, I distributed the gifts that I brought to them from Germany. On top of that, my sister recently had a son, and I haven’t seen him yet. I didn’t know when I would be able to come and visit my parents next time, and I turned out to be right, since I was able to come home only after sixteen years. Of course, I didn’t think or imagine then that I would have to live for many years in the USA. But my parents were glad to see me at home and hear about my impressions of Germany. After spending several days at my parents’ house, I returned to Kharkov and started renovating my apartment. At my request, my friends sold one of the VCRs that I brought with me for a good price and I had money for operating expenses. First, I had to clear out the construction debris that “for some reason” ended up under the linoleum and re-make the screed, level the corners, etc. After that, I had to prepare the walls for wallpapering and, in order to create the appearance of high ceilings, I put the molding that I ordered earlier around the perimeter of the room. All this decorated my home, and after the wallpaper was pasted, the apartment even began to look very good. One of my acquaintances helped me in all this work, to whom I am very grateful for his help. And so, the apartment acquired a more or less decent appearance, but was... empty! I still had to find and buy furniture and preferably... decent furniture. Thanks to friends, I first managed to buy a very pleasant-looking carpet with a pleasant pattern for the entire room and a little later a Yugoslav wall, very comfortable armchairs with a coffee table and a sofa bed that made up one set. In Soviet times, all this could be “obtained” only through an acquaintance or, more simply, through connections, or by waiting in line for several years, or by overpaying several times and getting it quickly. I didn’t have to overpay because my friends helped me. One way or another, the furniture was assembled and installed, the apartment took on a residential look and it was time for me to go to Moscow again. The fact is that director Alberta Ignatenko conveyed to me his invitation to give a course of her lectures at his school, classes of which were supposed to begin in mid-February. I decided to accept this offer and therefore, I had to return to Moscow. So, I didn’t even have to live in my apartment after putting it in order for a few days. A few days before my departure, I spoke at a party about my participation in the Chernobyl affairs, about my request for help, with which I turned to one of the high hierarchies of the Universe, with which I had contact at that time, and they sent a rescue space ship to my request a ship whose actions prevented a planetary catastrophe that was supposed to occur in early October 1987. As I wrote about this earlier, the actions of the space alien were observed by participants in the events around the sarcophagus of the fourth reactor. The appearance of a spaceship over the sarcophagus was a complete surprise to everyone and was kept completely secret by the special services from the masses, and not only that! So, my story in the smallest detail and with an exact indication of time, on the one hand, and an explanation of why this spaceship appeared, on the other hand, caused very close attention to me from the Soviet intelligence services. And it was from this moment that a fundamentally new chapter of my life began - my confrontation with the intelligence services of first the USSR, and then other countries. And, naturally, I did not understand this right away. You could say that life itself confronted me with a fact, without asking whether I liked it or not, whether I wanted it or not. A couple of days after that significant conversation, as if by the way, on the street, after I insured my Mercedes with Gosstrakh, I was offered to put on my shoulder straps again. Only based on the salary offered to me, the offerors apparently “confused” the size of my stars and how they (the stars) were located on my shoulder straps when I left the army in 1986. I was offered a salary of 600 rubles, complete freedom of action and full assistance from the authorities in all my endeavors and the green light in any of my actions! And even in uniform, I won’t have to walk and I can go wherever I want and as much as I want, only “sometimes” I will have to do what I’m asked to do! A very “nice” proposal, but it did not evoke the “necessary” delight and tenderness in me! I refused, saying that I prefer freedom in my actions and am not ready to carry out orders that contradict my ideas and beliefs, but I am ready to do everything in my power in cases where requests for help correspond to my ideas about about what is good and what is bad. Of course, I understood that refusal to cooperate with the intelligence services, more precisely with the GRU, would be fraught with danger for myself, but this did not change my decision. I had already freed myself from naivety and Soviet propaganda, and did not believe that the revolution of 1917 and everything that happened to my Motherland after was and is for the benefit of my people. Even then, not yet in full and not in all “colors,” I had an idea of who, for what and why, did this to Russia. Of course, I could say what I would think, but it was not in my character. I expected that my refusal would be followed by repressive actions on the part of the “merchants,” but I did not know and did not imagine even then what they would be and how quickly they would follow. Having basically completed the renovation of my apartment and furnished it to my liking from what was within my means, I was ready to return to Moscow. I called the director Stella Ignatenko several times about the start of his school in Moscow and, having received the exact start time of classes, I decided to go to Moscow in my car. The last night before leaving, I slept for the first and last time in my own apartment, and my first one at that! I parked my car overnight in a guarded paid parking lot. As it turned out, this did not help to avoid trouble, except that no one broke anything or stole anything. As I realized a little later, at a paid parking lot they even added something to my car, more precisely to the tires of the left front wheel. On the day of departure, I wanted to leave early to get to Moscow before dark. But after driving the car to my house, going up to my apartment on the ninth floor, I decided to get a little sleep, as I was a little tired with my repairs. This “little thing” turned out to be quite long, since instead of the morning I left in the evening. I will not again describe my first acquaintance with the “gratitude” of the Soviet intelligence services for the fact that then, in early October 1987, I asked for help from the hierarchy of the Universe. A radio-controlled small explosive charge exploded in the wheel following a signal from a small beacon installed on a dangerous section of the Kharkov-Moscow highway. Everything worked out only thanks to the fact that I left later and stopped along the road because the trucks moving ahead were splashing mud on the windshield of my Mercedes, and I decided to sleep better in the car in the parking lot and drive late at night, when there was practically no traffic on the road. cars If it weren’t for this, who knows how everything would have turned out, but after a wheel explosion on a section of the road with very steep slopes, only my car was damaged, and that, to a greater extent, because it hit the rail on its right side near the front door fencing. My car stopped in the most incredible way, instead of “tumbling” many times before reaching the bottom of the ravine. Nobody wanted to believe that this happened, although there was visual evidence of this. The car stopped only because the steel fence cable looped around the trunk hook and thereby stopped the car. At the same time, the jerk was so strong that the bottom of the car trunk was bent. By a fortunate coincidence, among the few cars that were on the road at that time, there was a truck with a winch, with the help of which my Mercedes was pulled onto the road. I thanked everyone who helped me and proceeded to replace the left front tire with a spare one and continued on my way. Early in the morning I got to Butovo and, having unloaded the car, went to rest. When I told about what happened and my opinion on this matter, Vladimir Dmitrievich Sergeev began to convince me that the cause of the accident was my lack of experience as a driver. But I was not convinced by his explanation, not because I considered myself a “cool” driver, but because my lack of experience had nothing to do with the huge hole in the tire tread. It was not a puncture or a burst tire, but a wheel with a huge hole that looked exactly like what happens during an explosion. But the confirmation is not even this, which could be attributed to some hidden defect in the rubber, which in itself would be very strange, but the fact that this attempt to free the earth from my presence was not the last! True, I conveyed through Sergeev that our special services were unlikely to be able to remove me or force me to do something against my will, but they either did not believe his message, or decided to check it. One way or another, the second attempt to get rid of me did not take long. Soon after my arrival in Moscow, classes began at the Phenomenon school. Albert Ignatenko invited me to give a series of my lectures at his school. I usually had a couple of study hours almost every day. Besides Ignatenko and me, several other people gave lectures. During my lectures, I gave listeners my understanding of nature in general and human nature in particular, I worked with people, qualitatively transforming their brains, creating an evolutionary leap in their development. The location of the classes was located not far from the Garden Ring, and therefore my route home was always the same. From the Garden Ring I turned onto the Varshavskoye Highway, past the Danilovsky Market and further along the highway to Butovo. I went to classes with my brother and cousin, who were students of the seminars. One day in February, after finishing classes, I went home with my brother and cousin. After I turned off the Garden Ring and drove along the Warsaw Highway, I saw that a column of military trucks was standing along the road. As I remember, along the highway there was a very long brick building with many shops on the ground floor, and then at that time there was a parking lot in front of the Danilovsky market. So, a military column stood along this long building all the way to the intersection. Well, there’s a military column standing there, what’s so special about it? Everything would have been exactly like this if a truck had not driven out of the middle of the column standing at the side of the road and rushed towards me. My defense system worked, and I managed to avoid a serious collision in time. The military URAL only knocked off the handle of the right rear door. I was driving in the second line and managed to get into the third lane without any problems. I stopped and began to listen to the explanation from those responsible for the accident. It turned out that the convoy belonged to some part of the KGB (very curious, isn’t it?), a sergeant was driving, who was leaving the army in a couple of months, etc. and so on. But the most curious thing is that this car started from the middle of the column, I myself served in the army and walked in a column of cars, I was the eldest in the car and I know that a car from the middle of the column fundamentally cannot move, this is a gross violation of the order and regulations. Neither the demobilization sergeant nor the warrant officer, who was the senior officer in this vehicle, could not have known this! Most likely, the following happened. This column was awaiting my appearance. They were apparently informed that I had already left and was moving along the route, but I passed the section separating us faster than they expected, and apparently did not have time to give the entire column the command to move. And only those who were tasked with organizing the accident were forced to rush out of the column in a hurry, but this did not save the situation. I managed to block the actions of the URAL driver, otherwise one could imagine what would happen if this URAL crashed into the side of my car at full speed. The second failure did not calm them down either. In April there was a third attempt, even more sophisticated. After this incident, there was a lull on the “front” for some time; apparently the other “side” was thinking about what to do something similar to me. Meanwhile, my life continued... At the instigation of Vladimir Dmitrievich Sergeev, already familiar to everyone, I met Victoria Mikhailovna Zub, who at that time worked on a Russian television channel as a director. Word by word, a conversation began, and she really liked what she heard from me. As a result of our several conversations, she came up with an idea for a series of programs called “Portrait against the backdrop of the universe.” In total, four programs of thirty minutes each were made and aired. The first program was filmed on the territory of the Ostankino television center, and the program was my interview. While we were talking about general ideas and concepts, the “talking head” was more or less acceptable, but when it came to specific concepts and phenomena, I suggested that Victoria Mikhailovna dilute our “talking heads” with different stories on the topic of conversation. Starting from the second program, the programs had more and more explanatory materials, where during my explanation on the screen the audience could see what I was talking about. For example, when I was explaining cell division and the phenomenon of the complete disappearance of an old cell and the appearance of new ones only after a certain interval of time, Victoria Mikhailovna managed to find a fragment of a recording of the process of cell division, observed through a tunnel microscope. When I later watched the program on air, it was very impressive! In other programs, for example, a specially filmed story was used, my experiment, when a person whom I introduced into a state of altered consciousness was filmed with an encephalogram of the brain, and the camera showed that a person in such a state thinks, answers questions, etc., in while, according to the testimony of the recorder, the person should have been in a state of clinical death or coma! For me, the process of working on the programs was very interesting, since Victoria Mikhailovna, as they say, did not step on my “throat”. We discussed stories together, there was a good creative atmosphere. As a result of her approach, each subsequent program turned out to be more interesting. In parallel with working on these programs, I accepted several more times an invitation from Albert Ignatenko to give lectures at his Phenomenon center. After lecturing in Moscow, I gave lectures in Nikolaev, in his hometown. At the Nikolaev school, I was already allocated more hours; besides Ignatenko himself and me, several other people gave lectures. The last time I lectured with Albert Ignatenko was in Donetsk, where he also invited me. In this mining capital there was a course of lectures for doctors and about half of the lectures were given by me, and the other half by Ignatenko himself. In principle, this ten-day training course at the Phenomenon Center was based only on his and my lectures. And somehow, when the course was almost finished, the organizers of these seminars from Donetsk approached me and said that, with all due respect to Albert Ignatenko, they would really like me to hold my own school in Donetsk. Then for the first time I thought, why not!? After all, to hold my school, I only need myself, a place to hold it and, naturally, those who want it. I and those interested are already available, and finding a room will not be difficult. The only drawback was that I did not have the opportunity to issue diplomas to my students stating that they had attended the course of my lectures. I said that I would think about their proposal, and if getting the “crust” itself is not important to them, then maybe my school will too. Among the initiative group of Donetsk residents there was a journalist named Valentina, who asked for my phone number and expressed a desire to write an article about my Chernobyl affairs. She came to Moscow soon after that, and we even met several times. No article came out of all this, but this woman first tried to interest some American businessman in me, with whom I even met once, but nothing really came of this meeting. But what I am really grateful to this woman for is that she introduced me to my future wife Svetlana. And it happened quite funny, as I learned about it later. Svetlana at that time worked as a television journalist for the Polish branch of the European television company Antenna and was engaged in, in particular, looking for people with an unusual gift in the USSR. It was thanks to Svetlana that many names thundered across the country in the late eighties and early nineties. So, Donetsk journalist Valentina, having met Svetlana, once asked her if she was interested in Levashov, who rebuilds people’s brains. In the strangest way, after she gave my phone number to Svetlana, she suddenly disappeared, and I never heard anything from her again, and she never called me again. Apparently her role was limited to connecting us with each other, and that’s all! To act as a kind of connecting link between our destinies. And for this I am very grateful to her! Around the same time, in April 1991, “military actions” against me were resumed. One day late in the evening the alarm in my car went off and I looked out the window and found nothing, thinking that someone had simply touched the car with their hand. The next morning I went to another meeting, and my cousin often went with me to these meetings. So it was that morning. On the evening of the previous day, I filled the full tank of my Mercedes and all the spare cans, of which I had four in the trunk. Anyone who remembers those times knows well how things were with gasoline, and how you had to stand in line to fill the car’s tank with gasoline. So, I went to the meeting, it was the month of April, there was slush on the roads... in short, an ordinary April day. And so, I’m driving along and see that the gasoline level indicator needle is going down very quickly! Yes, so fast that it’s literally crawling down before our eyes. At first I thought that the gasoline level sensor was broken, I stopped my car, checked all the contacts, etc. and went again. But nothing changed, gasoline continued to decrease incredibly quickly in the tank of my car. I stopped again, but this time I didn’t turn off the engine and got out of my car. Before this, I had no idea where the fuel pump is located on a Mercedes. But it was clear to me that the problem was hidden under the right front fender of the car. I bent down and... saw a very interesting picture. From the gas pump (as I found out a little later) a gasoline fountain was shooting into the bottom of the car, which, hitting under pressure at this very bottom, scattered drops in different directions. Nearby were the terminals of the electric motor that drives this gasoline pump. In short, splashes of gasoline, electric sparks... a fun situation with a completely predictable ending. Realizing the danger of the situation, I got my cousin out of the car, found the nearest phone, called and canceled the appointment, and called my mechanic and reported my problem. Apparently, I didn’t explain the essence of the problem to him accurately enough, because when I got to him (and I had to get to his workshop for quite a long time and drive after discovering the problem, about thirty-five kilometers, and in total - about seventy, if you count from home ), and he saw everything with his own eyes, his first question was - how did you even get here alive and not explode! ? And this is what he told me. The fuel pump housing is specially made of an alloy that shatters into small pieces in the event of an impact or other damage. All this is done in order to prevent the release of gasoline under pressure from cracks in the fuel pump housing, because in this case an explosion is inevitable. In my case there was a very interesting situation. Someone drilled a small hole in the body of the fuel pump of my Mercedes, and in such a way that the gasoline ejected from this hole under pressure would hit the bottom of the car and splash out in all directions. It is possible to drill such a hole in such an alloy only with a special high-speed drill, otherwise the alloy will shatter into pieces. Such drills and such drills could not be bought in the store then, and even now! So, it is extremely clear who and why drilled this “hole” to the next world for me. The mechanic even then looked at me and told me that he didn’t understand how I even got to him and didn’t explode. According to him, I should have exploded every second and the fact that this did not happen is a miracle in itself. I assumed something similar, but the fact that I didn’t explode was not something out of the ordinary for me. This is the effect of my protection, which I spoke about, and the effectiveness of which was checked by the intelligence services. It was a pretty good idea. If this “event” had been successful, I would have burned alive in my Mercedes, and no one would have ever known about the small hole drilled in the fuel pump of my Mercedes. The master, in the absence of a new fuel pump, installed a “clamp” in place of the drilled hole, and I went about my business. I hoped that my protection was working, but I could not be one hundred percent sure, since I did not have the opportunity to check the effectiveness of my protection in action. So, I had to test it in real conditions, when the smallest mistake was deadly and not only in a figurative sense. The military operations launched against me by the special services were the first tests for me on a purely earthly level of my methods, and they did not let me down! For the intelligence services, I think it was an unpleasant surprise to discover that my words about the protection system I created were neither a bluff nor the ravings of a madman. After that, they “lay down” to the bottom for some time, although not for long. Meanwhile, they changed their tactics. But more about this a little later, and then I would like to continue my story about more pleasant events in my life in April - early May 1991...
22.11.2014 3 16489
This 13-year-old boy's name has become a symbol twice. First - a symbol of the struggle of pioneer heroes against 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 anything to do with the true history Pavlika Morozova. A teenager who simply cared about his mother and younger brothers and was not afraid to speak the truth, even under pain of death.
Today, as a rule, Ural schoolboy Pavlik Morozov is mentioned in a humorous or condemning context. Everyone seems to know that he “betrayed his father”, “wrote a denunciation”, but no one remembers the details of the case itself.
Soviet propaganda instantly placed Pavlik on 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 to those September events of 1932 has long been forgotten.
Only “whistleblowers” who are greedy for sensations periodically try to give a new interpretation of old events.
But it was all quite simple.
Village corruption
Pavlik Morozov was born a year after the October Revolution, on November 14, 1918. His childhood occurred during the most difficult time - the first years of the formation of Soviet power.
The harshest blow of the transition period - the Civil War and subsequent military communism - was borne by the peasants.
The residents of the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province, endured hardships just like everyone else. 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 peacefully: the father often beat both the mother and the children. Not because he was too harsh in character, but simply because these were the usual village morals of that time.
But Trofim Morozov, even if he wanted to, could not be called a good person. He eventually left his family and began to live with his mistress next door. 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 property confiscated from dispossessed people.
A separate source of his income was issuing illegal certificates to special settlers. This category of citizens appeared in the early 30s, when “kulaks” and “sub-kulaks” were sent to special settlements without trial or investigation. There they had to live like exiles, observing a strict schedule 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 such a life. But for this, a certificate of registration with some village council was needed. So that the competent authorities at your new place of residence do not have questions about where you came from, what you did before.
It was these certificates that Morozov was selling. Moreover, he continued to do this even after he was removed from his post as chairman of the village council in 1931. He got burned on them. Over time, Gerasimovka began to receive requests one after another 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 in Gerasimovka before?
Too often, special settlers began to come across with false certificates in their pockets. And in November 1931, at the Tavda station, a certain Zvorykin was detained with two blank forms on which were stamped the Gerasimov village council. He honestly admitted to the police officers that he paid 105 rubles for them. A few days later, several people were arrested in connection with the case of forged certificates, including Trofim Morozov.
Fictional denunciation
From this moment the same story of Pavlik Morozov begins. And it starts right away with contradictions. Investigator Elizar Shepelev, who subsequently investigated the boy’s murder, wrote the following in the indictment: “Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigative 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 openly 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 contacted the investigative authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. I probably meant that Pavel testified to the judge when Trofim was tried...”
Journalist Evgenia Medyakova, who tried to get to the bottom of the truth in the early 1980s, did not find any traces of Pavlik’s testimony in the case of Trofim Morozov. The testimony of his mother is available, but the boy is not. True, he apparently did speak at the trial, but it is unlikely that he said anything new or valuable. Nevertheless, this was enough to arouse hatred towards 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 serve his entire sentence. He returned three years later, with an order for shock labor. But by that time, his two sons - Pavel and Fedor - had been killed.
It must 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 and maintained the household as best he could. And in the eyes of adults, it was he, and not Tatyana, who bore all the responsibility for Trofim’s “betrayal.” Pavel was especially hated by his grandfather Sergei, who was fully supported in this by his wife and grandmother Aksinya (or Ksenia).
Another sworn enemy was Danil's cousin. Finally, his godfather and Trofim’s sister’s husband, Arseny Kulukanov, did not have any warm feelings for the boy. According to one version, Pavel mentioned his name in his speech at the trial, calling him “fist.” These four people eventually found themselves 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 Fedor went into the forest to pick berries. Having learned about this, Kulukanov persuaded Danila to follow them and kill the boys. And he even allegedly paid him 5 rubles for it. Danila did not commit the crime alone, but went to his grandfather Sergei for advice.
He calmly stood up and, watching his accomplice take the knife, said: “Let’s go kill, don’t be afraid.” They found Pavlik and eight-year-old Fyodor quite quickly. Danila dealt fatal blows to both, but grandfather Sergei did not allow the younger boy to escape.
Since Pavel and Fyodor were planning to go into the forest for the night, they were not missed right away. Moreover, my mother was also away. When Tatyana returned to the village, she found out that the children had not returned for the third day. Alarmed, she roused the people to search, and the next day the bodies of the slaughtered children were discovered.
The grief-stricken mother later told the investigator that on the same day on the street she met grandmother Aksinya, who told her with an evil laugh: “Tatyana, we made you meat, and now you eat it!”
The investigation quickly found the killers. The main evidence was a utility knife and Danila’s bloody clothes, which Aksinya had 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, then admitting and then denying what had been done.
Aksinya and Arseny Kulukanov did not admit 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 men were already 80 years old), were sent to live out their lives in prison.
Symbol in a red tie
This would have been the end of this essentially simple story of domestic feud. If only Soviet propaganda had not taken over the matter. The boy, killed by his relatives for two careless words spoken at a court hearing, was not needed by anyone. But the pioneer hero, who fearlessly exposed the kulaks and subkulakists and fell in an unequal battle, is the right story.
Therefore, in the very first note on this topic, published in the Ural Worker newspaper on November 19, 1932, Pavlik’s story was told as follows:
“...And when Pasha’s grandfather, Sergei Morozov, hid the kulak property, Pasha ran to the village council and exposed his grandfather. In the winter of 1932, Pasha brought the kulak Arseny Silin out into the fresh water, who did not fulfill a firm assignment and sold a cart 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 with 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 the kulaks and subkulak members...”
The already difficult life of a simple village teenager, abandoned by his father and carrying a load of household chores, suddenly turned into an endless battle with “kulaks and kulak podkulakniks” who endlessly carried out their “machinations” in little Gerasimovka.
Need I say that there are no documents confirming such active activities of the “whistleblower” Pavlik Morozov? But it was no longer a shame to name a pioneer detachment after such a hero. How to erect a monument to him.
“To some now Pavlik seems like a boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer uniform. But because of our poverty, he never even saw this uniform; he didn’t take part in pioneer parades, didn’t wear Molotov’s portraits, and didn’t shout “toast” to the leaders,” school teacher Larisa Isakova, who observed almost the entire history with her own eyes, later recalled.
But the propaganda machine was already working at full capacity. Poems, books, plays and even one opera were written about Pavlik Morozov! Fewer and fewer people remembered what exactly and why happened in Gerasimovka in the fall of 1932, and only a few tried to understand the details.
Long arms of the OGPU?
But times have changed, and the pendulum has swung in the other direction. Equally powerful and uncontrollable. People who thirsted for the truth sought to expose all the myths of Soviet ideology. At the same time, I was too lazy to delve seriously into the question. 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. He deserved the dirty brand of “traitor” no more than the gold medal of “hero.”
Tatyana Morozova (Pavlik’s mother) with her grandson Pavel Morozov. Photo from 1979.
Everything was now called into question. Was Trofim Morozov such a terrible person? Was he deservedly sent to the camp? Did Pavlik write or not write the unfortunate denunciation against 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 excitement of revealing, some authors literally reached the point of absurdity. In 1987, the writer Yuri Druzhnikov published a book in the UK with the catchy title “Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov.” In it, he literally turned the whole situation upside down.
According to Druzhnikov, Pavlik was a puppet of the all-powerful security officers who sought to organize 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 names the real organizers and perpetrators of the murder as assistant commissioner of the OGPU Spiridon Kartashov and Pavel’s cousin Ivan Potupchik, who collaborated with the authorities. This version was criticized many times and literally dismantled to its bones.
And not only by domestic researchers. Oxford University professor Catriona Kelly, for example, noted that Druzhnikov very selectively uses the materials of the official investigation, recognizing as authentic only those that fit into his theory.
Despite the extremely weak argumentation, Druzhnikov nevertheless quite accurately points out the weaknesses in the official version of the investigation. It is truly unclear why the killers did not bother to hide the knife and bloody clothes.
Grandfather Sergei served as a gendarme in the past, grandmother Aksinya once made a living as a horse theft. That is, both should have had a good idea of what the investigation and evidence are. However, they made it surprisingly easy and simple to arrest themselves.
However, no matter how much 80-year-old documents are shuffled, this will not change the main thing. Two boys, Pavel and Fyodor Morozov, are neither heroes nor traitors. And the unfortunate victims of circumstances and hard times.
Victor BANEV
For modern Russian youth, the word “pioneers” sounds about the same as “dinosaurs”. Young Russians know only by hearsay about the existence of a mass children's organization in the Soviet Union, in whose work almost all schoolchildren, starting from the 3rd grade, were involved.
The first hero of the pioneers
At the same time, almost everyone over 30 has personally experienced this special layer of Soviet culture associated with the ideological education of youth.
The Soviet pioneers, in addition to the adults whose examples they were encouraged to follow, had their own heroes - teenagers with red ties who sacrificed their lives for the sake of their own ideals, beliefs and in the name of the Motherland.
Pavlik Morozov (in the center, with a book) with a group of fellow students. Photo: Public Domain
The beginning of the gallery of pioneer heroes was, of course, Pavlik Morozov. Unlike many others, Pavel Trofimovich Morozov remained in folklore, although the fame of a “traitor to his father” that has stuck to him in no way reflects the real state of affairs.
According to the canonical Soviet version, Pavlik Morozov was one of the organizers of the first pioneer detachment in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. In 1931, at the height of the fight against the kulaks, 13-year-old Pavel testified against his father, Trofim Morozov, who, as chairman of the village council, collaborated with the kulaks, helped them evade taxes, and also hid grain that was to be handed over to the state. Based on this testimony of the principled pioneer, Trofim Morozov was sentenced to 10 years.
In September 1932, kulaks, among whom were Pavel’s grandfather and the boy’s cousin, brutally killed the pioneer and his younger brother Fedor in the forest.
In the case of the murder of Pavlik Morozov, four people were convicted - the grandparents of the dead boys, as well as a cousin Danila and godfather Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle. The direct perpetrator of the crime, Danila Morozov, and one of the “customers” of the murder, Arseny Kulukanov, were shot, and the elderly Ksenia And Sergei Morozov sentenced to prison. Interestingly, one of the accused, Arseny Silin, was completely acquitted.
If in Soviet times Pavlik Morozov was presented as an “unbending fighter for ideals,” then during the perestroika period critics characterized him as “an informer who betrayed his own father.” The circumstances of the pioneer's death were also questioned.
What is known today?
Father and son
Pavlik Morozov was indeed one of the first pioneers in the village of Gerasimovka. The village was split - on the one hand, the extreme poverty of some, on the other, the prosperity of the so-called “kulaks”, opponents of Soviet power, which included some of Pavel Morozov’s relatives.
Pavel's father, Trofim Morozov, became the head of the Gerasimovsky village council, and in this position left a very bad reputation for himself. He was noted for what is now called “corruption” - he appropriated the property of dispossessed people, helped wealthy fellow villagers evade taxes, and speculated on certificates issued to special settlers.
Portrait of Pavlik Morozov, created on the basis of the only known photograph in which he was captured. Photo: Public Domain
Pavel could not experience warm feelings for his father also because Trofim Morozov abandoned his family, leaving for another woman. Paul's mother Tatiana, was left with four children in her arms, virtually without a livelihood. Trofim's parents, Sergei and Ksenia Morozov, hated Tatyana because she once refused to live in a common house with them and insisted on a division. They did not have warm feelings for Tatyana’s children either, calling them, according to the recollections of Pavel’s brother, Alexei Morozov, nothing more than “puppies.”
And after Pavlik joined the pioneers, in the eyes of his grandfather he completely turned into the main object of hatred.
At the same time, Pavel himself had no time for pioneer training: after his father left, he became the main man in the family and helped his mother with the housework.
In 1931, the notoriety of Trofim Morozov, who had already left the post of chairman of the village council, reached the ears of the competent authorities. A case of abuse was opened against Morozov. At the trial, Tatyana Morozova gave testimony about her husband’s unlawful acts known to her, and Pavel only confirmed his mother’s words, and was stopped by the judge, who did not consider it necessary to demand extensive testimony from the minor. As a result, Trofim Morozov was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Massacre
There is conflicting information about his future fate. “Whistleblowers” of Pavlik Morozov claim that his father was allegedly executed in the camp in 1938, but there is no evidence of this. According to other sources, Trofim Morozov, having served his sentence, settled in the Tyumen region, where he lived until the end of his days, trying not to advertise his connection with Pavlik Morozov.
Considering that Tatyana Morozova gave the main testimony against her ex-husband, Trofim’s relatives took revenge not on Pavlik, but on her. On September 2, 1932, Tatyana left on business, and the next day Pavel and his younger brother Fedor went into the forest to pick berries. The father's relatives considered this an opportunity, and, lying in wait for the boys in the forest, they dealt with them.
Pavel was stabbed in the stomach and heart, and his brother Fyodor, who tried to escape, was first hit in the temple with a stick and then finished off with a knife in the stomach.
The search for the children began on September 5, upon the return of the mother. Already on September 6, the bodies were found in the forest. The killers did not particularly try to hide the fact of the massacre. Pavel’s mother, Tatyana Morozova, later recalled that when the bodies of the brutally murdered children were brought to the village, Ksenia Morozova, the mother of her ex-husband and the grandmother of the victims, told her with a grin: “Tatiana, we gave you meat, and now you eat it!”
The investigation into the murder made it possible to fully prove the guilt of the suspects. Later attempts to see the murder of the Morozov brothers as a “provocation of the OGPU” do not stand up to criticism.
In 1999, representatives of the Memorial movement and relatives of the Morozov brothers convicted of murder tried to get the sentence reviewed. However, the General Prosecutor's Office of Russia, having examined the case, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov was purely criminal in nature, and the killers were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds.
Hero and victim
So, the pioneer Pavlik Morozov, objectively speaking, was not “an informer and a traitor to his father.” Pavel's father, Trofim Morozov, was essentially a corrupt official and an extremely dishonest person who abandoned his own children to their fate.
Reproduction of the painting “Pavlik Morozov” by artist Nikita Chebakov (1952). Photo: Public Domain
I really don’t want to say anything about the relatives of Pavel and Fyodor Morozov, who, out of revenge, organized and carried out the brutal murder of minors - everything is said about them in the verdict, the validity of which was confirmed by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office.
The whole problem with Pavlik Morozov is that at the height of acute confrontation in society in the early 1930s, his tragic death became a banner for the authorities, a symbol of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals and values.
Half a century later, another political force with an anti-Soviet orientation would, with no less zeal, use Pavlik’s tragic fate for its own purposes, throwing mud at the teenager’s memory.
From the point of view of his era, Pavlik Morozov was a teenager with strong convictions who opposed the enemies of the existing system and was killed for it. From today's point of view. Pavlik Morozov is a teenager with strong views on life, who, as a law-abiding citizen, testified in court against a local administration employee mired in corruption, for which he was killed by criminals.
Pavlik helps
After the death of two sons, 13-year-old Pavel and 8-year-old Fedor, Tatyana Morozova left Gerasimovka forever. Her other children also suffered a difficult fate - Grisha died in childhood, Roman fought with the Nazis and died from his wounds after the war, and Alexey was condemned as an “enemy of the people”, spent several years in prison and was only later rehabilitated.
Pavlik Morozov's mother was lucky - she died before perestroika, but Alexei Morozov had to fully feel the streams of dirt and outright lies that befell his brother during the period of democratic changes.
The paradox is that in Pavel’s homeland in the village of Gerasimovka, where the young pioneer, according to whistleblowers, “betrayed and snitched,” his memory is treated extremely carefully. Both the monument to Pavlik and his museum have been preserved there. Local residents come to the monument and leave notes with their deepest desires. They say Pavlik helps them.