Kolchak biography civil war. Alexander Kolchak

21.10.2021

On the banks of the winding river Ushakovka, a simple wooden cross rises from the snow. This is a monument at the site of the execution of Admiral Kolchak - one of the most striking and controversial figures of the time split by the revolution. A brilliant scientist, the hero of Port Arthur, a cruel dictator and a soft to the point of shyness. The life and fate of Admiral Kolchak are overgrown with legends that give his image an unctuous sheen. About his role in the history of Russia - after a long forced silence - historians and politicians argue harshly. In the life of Kolchak there were many victories and many defeats. And one love that survived him. Her name was Anna Vasilievna Timireva.

Ushakovka flows into the Angara, nearby is the prison where the admiral spent his last days. (The cell where he was kept was recently returned to its previous number - the fifth, thus making it a memorial.) "He was shot here, under this cliff. grave. And the Bolsheviks were in a hurry, they had no time for ceremonies," says Vladimir Svinin, deputy director of the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore. After the execution, the body was loaded onto a sled, taken to Ushakovka and thrown into the hole. (The people of Irkutsk always took water from numerous ice-holes - of course, there was no running water until the 1940s, and the ice-holes "revived" constantly.) This barbaric burial gave rise to many conjectures. The most stable: in the spring the body was taken out and buried in accordance with the Christian rite. “The Angara is under ice until May, and there is a powerful current. And small crustaceans live at the bottom, which can leave a skeleton from the body in a few hours,” says Vladimir Svinin, who has been studying the Irkutsk period of Kolchak’s life for several decades.

Back in the 60s, Svinin managed to meet with one of those who carried out the sentence. For obvious reasons, the scientist did not dare to publish or at least fix the story on paper. "My then interlocutor spoke in an undertone, it was not clear whether he was proud of what he had done or was still embarrassed." When they came for the admiral and announced that they would be shot, he asked, apparently not at all surprised: "Is that so? Without trial?"

He refused to pray before being shot, and stood calmly, arms crossed over his chest. He asked only to convey the blessing to his wife and son. Not a word about Anna Timireva, who voluntarily went under arrest so as not to part with him until the end. Probably, he did not want Anna Vasilievna to hear his last words addressed to her from those who carried out the sentence. A few hours before the execution, Kolchak wrote her a note, which never reached her. For decades, the leaflet wandered through the folders of investigative cases.

"My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your kindness and concern for me ... Do not worry about me. I feel better, my colds are passing. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I think only of you and I don't worry about myself - everything is known in advance. My every step is being watched, and it is very difficult for me to write... Write to me. Your notes are the only joy I can have. I pray for you and bow before your self-sacrifice. My dear, my adored, do not worry about me and save yourself ... Goodbye, I kiss your hands. There was no more meeting. He was shot on February 7, 1920, the day after his birthday.

"I ask the Extraordinary Investigation Commission to tell me where and by virtue of what sentence Admiral Kolchak was shot and whether I, as his closest person, will be given his body to be buried according to the rites of the Orthodox Church. Anna Timireva."

Resolution on the letter: "Answer that Kolchak's body is buried and will not be given to anyone." And there was no verdict. Only a note to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army: "Do not spread any news about Kolchak, print absolutely nothing, and after we occupy Irkutsk, send a strictly official telegram explaining that the local authorities, before our arrival, acted in this way under the influence of ... the danger of White Guard conspiracies in Irkutsk. Lenin". A note by a graduate of the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, a lawyer, even if he failed. Kolchak, who did not have a legal education, wrote in 1919: "I have full power, I can actually shoot criminals, but I put them on trial, and cases are dragged out."

Kharlampievsky temple, where Kolchak got married in 1904, by an evil irony of fate, is located on the street of the 5th Army - the very one that made Irkutsk Soviet. In the church, once gracefully beautiful, in Soviet times there was a hostel ... Now the gray-beige ruins of the temple are being restored.

"She may have been stronger than him as a person"

Five years passed from the moment of acquaintance to the execution. Most of the time they lived apart - each had a family, both had sons. We didn't see each other for months, once for a year. On the coast

At the jubilee ball, she will give him (and several other acquaintances) her photo "in a Russian costume" - we publish it today. And many months later, a friend of the house will tell Anna Vasilievna that this picture is hanging in Kolchak's cabin. He also carries her glove with him everywhere.

She was the first to confess her love to him - with the frankness of Pushkin's Tatyana and the determination of her namesake Karenina. "I told him I love him." And he, who had long been and, as it seemed to him, hopelessly in love, replied: "I did not tell you that I love you." - "No, I'm saying this: I always want to see you, I always think about you, it's such a joy for me to see you." And he, embarrassed to a spasm in his throat: "I love you more than." Three more years will pass, and they will see each other - in front of everyone and secretly, in fits and starts. And everyone will know about this love, and Sofya Kolchak, the admiral's wife, confesses to her friend: "You'll see, he will divorce me and marry Anna Vasilievna." Timireva will divorce her husband in 1918 and from that moment on she will become his common-law wife. She was 25 years old, he was 44. His family has long been in France ...

“Timireva was a very lively, witty and charming woman. In addition to the feminine charm of Kolchak, who loved her with enthusiastic, even a little shy love, she was admired by her sharp mind and interest in politics,” says Professor of the Department of Russian History of the Russian State Pedagogical University. Herzen Anatoly Smolin, who prepared Timireva's letters to Kolchak for publication.

“She, perhaps, was stronger than him as a person, knowing how not to lose heart even in extreme circumstances. She went to the Irkutsk prison for Kolchak, self-arresting herself to support,” Smolin believes. “To help him and in the last days to maintain dignity, she even then I felt that it would become a symbol, and I strived to ensure that this symbol was not "obscured" even by a moment of weakness before the end. "Finally, a bridle is found on the Soviet of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, and they begin to speak with it in the proper tone, I have your letter, so sweet ... and in the afternoon - a strong spring thaw with a bright sun - all together led me to a wonderful state of mind, and so I want to believe that nothing - we will fight again! - letter from Anna Timireva dated March 17, 1917. “From reading newspapers, talking about a coalition government, about consoling events in the navy, about Lenin, anarchists and other such charms, the head finally becomes useless ...” - a letter dated May 7, 1917.

"Former courtesan - Kolchak's wife arrested"

Timireva after the execution of Kolchak was released from prison - not for long. Already in June 1920, she was sent "for a period of two years without the right to apply an amnesty to her in the Omsk concentration camp for forced labor." Freed from the camp, she gets married - out of despair, out of hopelessness, and since then she has had a double surname. "For counter-revolutionary activities, expressed in the manifestation among his entourage of malicious and hostile attacks against the Soviet government, the OO UGB NKVD arrested a former courtesan - Kolchak's wife, Anna Vasilyeva Kniper-Timirev ... She is accused of being hostile to Soviet power, in the past, she was Kolchak's wife, she spent the entire period of Kolchak's active struggle against Soviet power under the latter ... until his execution ... For this period, Kniper, not sharing the policy of the Soviet power on certain issues, showed her hostility and anger towards the existing system, i.e. in a crime under Article 58, paragraph 10 of the Criminal Code. Kniper pleaded guilty." The term is five years.

The torment continues. "In no case should she be released - she is connected with the top of the Kolchak military and an active woman," the representative of the Siberian Cheka assesses the character of his "ward" with true Bolshevik gallantry. Anna Vasilievna's son from his first marriage, Volodya Timirev, will be shot in 1938 for his correspondence with his father, who is abroad.

"Chimera in admiral's uniform"

"From my point of view, Kolchak was a born scientist. 50 years ago, when I came to the museum, my fellow paleontologists and I worked with the collections brought by Kolchak. They are still impeccable - a clear systematization, a huge, brilliantly formed scientific apparatus. I was associated with members of the Geographical Society, and they even

in Soviet times, they spoke with reverence about this activity of his. But this is only one side of the coin, "we are talking with Vladimir Svinin in the huge cold hall of the local history museum, where Admiral Kolchak once spoke about the expedition ...

The Irkutsk bourgeois government was shot by the Kolchakites, and those who were not shot were forced to leave - in 24 hours. A significant part of the local population hated Kolchak more than the Bolsheviks ... Here they did not know serfdom, and the peasantry was prosperous by average Russian standards. "Who was surrounded by Kolchak? Officers who lost their estates in Russia, hereditary serfs. They treated the peasants as serfs, they did not consider them to be people. And they came across hatred that might not have been. It was almost a habit for them ". Today's attitude towards the "Supreme Ruler of Russia" in Irkutsk can hardly be called unambiguous: "Kolchak is an exceptionally multifaceted personality, he is a true diamond who is constantly opening up a new facet: now a polar scientist, now a famous military theorist ... The Civil War brought people to the fore Kolchak failed to recognize the fifth column in the person of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, could not establish relations with the interventionists - that is, with the allies. But his undoubted merit is that the white banner was in clean hands. Let him lose, but he deserves to be example, it is difficult to reproach him for anything. The pompously apologetic point of view, whose supporter is Pavel Novikov, Associate Professor of the Department of History of the Irkutsk Technical University, is now growing stronger among the intellectual youth of Irkutsk. And it is actively supported by the Cossacks and political organizations that call themselves "patriotic". Supporters of such "canonization" are opposed by historians and representatives of the older generation, who are very far from politics, for whom the era of Kolchak's rule is part of their own life experience. “You should not take our current critical attitude towards Kolchak as a result of communist education,” Svinin explains this point of view. “It’s just that many people live among us whose families suffered from the cruelty of Kolchakism. My uncle got off lightly - they only broke all his ribs, until were looking for "Reds" ... Many peasants who moved to our province during the Stolypin reforms were forced to flee in the forests by entire villages. Their villages were simply burned. " The partisan detachment of father-in-law Svinin escorted the gold reserves of Kolchak's army to Irkutsk. “They joined the partisans because they were afraid that the Kolchakists would destroy them. The partisan movement organized by the Bolsheviks in Siberia is a myth of the Soviet era. It arose spontaneously - as a reaction to cane discipline, insane repressions and requisitions. The "Reds" were then considered the lesser evil. So Kolchak's own cruelty, alas, only helped the communists. The luck of the Communist Party is that it was able to take the spontaneous movement of the discontented into its own hands." They chose the "Reds" because they already knew the "Whites" well. And then it was too late to resist.

Kolchak himself describes his political convictions in letters to his beloved woman very clearly: “We will call a spade a spade, no matter how hard it is for our fatherland: after all, the basis of humanity, pacifism, the brotherhood of races is the simplest animal cowardice ... “Comrade” is synonymous with a coward above all." Another extremely intelligible assessment: "What is democracy? - It is a depraved popular mass that wants power. Power cannot belong to the masses due to the law of stupidity of numbers: every practical politician, if he is not a charlatan, knows that the decision of two people is always worse than one /.../, finally, already 20-30 people cannot make any reasonable decisions, except for nonsense". It was said in 1919.

The search for the Reds and their accomplices in the villages, turning into massacres and beatings, the policy of "scorched villages" gave rise to hatred. Many peasants had just taken off the greatcoats of the soldiers of the First World War, they were tired of fighting and, by and large, were generally indifferent to any authority. But Kolchak began to mobilize the peasants. "A rifle gives birth to power - this formula of Mao Zedong is very suitable for characterizing the origin

who lived here in the revolution and the Civil War. Kolchak did not control, could not control military formations. Much depended on the commanders, among whom, as in any volunteer army, there were many adventurers. They played with fate, - reflects the head of the history department of the Irkutsk Technical University, Professor Igor Naumov. - If Kolchak himself can be considered an idealist, then in his close circle there were people who sought to make a career at any cost. Kolchak turned out to be dependent on them. He became a hostage to the situation that predetermined his death."

Baron Budberg described Kolchak, "drunk and stern in appearance": "Undoubtedly, a very nervous, impetuous, but sincere person." "It's a pity to look at the unfortunate admiral, pushed around by various advisers and speakers, he hangs out at the behest of those who managed to bring his trust." And here are excerpts from the diary of N.V. Ustryalova for 1919: "You can, perhaps, say that a certain seal of fate, doom is felt on this face."

The admiral, proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia, acutely felt responsibility for the country and his impotence: “To be Russian ... to be a compatriot of Kerensky, Lenin, Dybenko and Krylenko ... after all, the whole world looks that way: after all, Judas Iscariot symbolized the Jews for centuries, and what a collection of such individuals has given our democracy, our "god-bearing people."

"Do you think Kolchak is a brand for our region?" - asked my Irkutsk colleague, who was concerned about the topic of erecting a monument to the "Supreme Ruler of Russia" that is now fashionable here. Truly, tragedy repeats itself like a farce. "Chimera in admiral's uniform" jokingly called Anna Timireva Kolchak. Today, this metaphor sounds more relevant than ever.

reference

Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich was born in 1874 into an officer's family, graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps. Gained fame as a researcher of the Siberian Arctic. Member of the Russo-Japanese War, commanded the destroyer "Angry", then an artillery battery in Port Arthur, was awarded the golden weapon "For Courage". At the beginning of the First World War, he served in the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet, the organizer of a successful mine war at sea. In 1916 he was promoted to rear admiral, then to vice admiral and was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Supported the February Revolution. In June 1917, he resigned in protest against the collapse of the Russian fleet. At the same time, he delivered an angry speech to the sailors and threw a golden weapon into the sea. In August-October 1917, a consultant to the US Navy, then joined the British Navy, but did not take up his duties. In April-May 1918, he was engaged in the formation of white troops in Manchuria. In November of the same year he was appointed Minister of War of the Directory. After the military coup on November 17-19 - the Supreme Ruler of Russia with dictatorial powers. Arrested by White Czechs near Irkutsk. He was shot in February 1920 in Irkutsk on the personal order of Lenin.

Timireva Anna Vasilievna was born in 1893 in Kislovodsk, in the family of the famous musician Safonov. In 1906, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where Anna Vasilievna graduated from the gymnasium of Princess Obolenskaya (1911) and studied drawing and painting in the private studio of S.M. Seidenberg. Fluent in French and German. In 1911-1918. - married to S.M. Timirev. In 1918-1919 she was a translator of the Press Department under the Administration of the Council of Ministers and the Supreme Ruler. Self-arrested after the arrest of Kolchak in January 1920. Released in the same year under the October amnesty. In May 1921, she was arrested a second time. Arrests and exiles in 1922, 1925, 1935, 1938 and 1949. Until 1960 - in the "minus" without the right to reside in 15 major cities of the USSR. In the intervals between arrests, she worked as a librarian, archivist, painter, props in the theater, draftsman. Rehabilitated in March 1960. She died in 1975.

February seventh

And every year on the seventh of February

One with my stubborn memory

I celebrate your anniversary again.

And those who knew you are long gone,

And those who are alive - everyone has long forgotten.

And this, for me, the most difficult day -

For them, the same as everyone else, -

Torn off calendar sheet.

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak (November 4 (16), 1874, St. Petersburg province - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian politician, Vice Admiral of the Russian Imperial Fleet (1916) and Admiral of the Siberian Flotilla (1918).

Polar explorer and oceanographer, member of the expeditions of 1900-1903 (awarded the Great Konstantinovsky Medal by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1906). Member of the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars.

Leader and leader of the White movement in the East of Russia. The Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920), was recognized in this post by the leadership of all white regions, "de jure" - by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "de facto" - by the Entente states.

The first well-known representative of the Kolchak family was the Ottoman commander Ilias Kolchak Pasha, commander of the Moldavian front of the Turkish army, and later the commandant of the Khotyn fortress, captured by Field Marshal Kh. A. Minich.

After the end of the war, Kolchak Pasha settled in Poland, and in 1794 his descendants moved to Russia and converted to Orthodoxy.

Alexander Vasilievich was born into the family of a representative of this family, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak (1837-1913), a staff captain of naval artillery, later a major general in the Admiralty.

V. I. Kolchak served his first officer rank with a severe wound during the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War of 1853-1856: he turned out to be one of the seven surviving defenders of the Stone Tower on Malakhov Kurgan, whom the French found among the corpses after the assault.

After the war, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and, until his retirement, served as an acceptance officer for the Naval Ministry at the Obukhov Plant, having a reputation as a straightforward and extremely scrupulous person.

Mother Olga Ilyinichna Kolchak, nee Posokhova, came from an Odessa merchant family.

Alexander Vasilyevich himself was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoe near St. Petersburg. The birth document of their first-born son testifies:
“... in the metric book of 1874 of the Trinity Church with. Alexander St. Petersburg district under No. 50 shows: Naval artillery at the staff captain Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak and his legal wife Olga Ilyina, both Orthodox and first-married, son Alexander was born on November 4, and baptized on December 15, 1874. His successors were: the captain of the sea Alexander Ivanovich Kolchak and the widow of the collegiate secretary Daria Filippovna Ivanova.

The future admiral received his primary education at home, and then studied at the 6th St. Petersburg classical gymnasium.
In 1894, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps, and on August 6, 1894 he was assigned to the cruiser of the 1st rank Rurik as an assistant to the chief of the watch, and on November 15, 1894 he was promoted to the rank of midshipman. On this cruiser he departed for the Far East.

At the end of 1896, Kolchak was assigned to the cruiser of the 2nd rank "Cruiser" to the position of chief of the watch. On this ship, for several years he went on campaigns in the Pacific Ocean, in 1899 he returned to Kronstadt.

On December 6, 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant. In the campaigns, Kolchak not only performed his official duties, but also actively engaged in self-education. He also became interested in oceanography and hydrology.

Upon arrival in Kronstadt, Kolchak went to Vice Admiral S. O. Makarov, who was preparing to sail on the Ermak icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Alexander Vasilievich asked to be accepted into the expedition, but was refused "due to official circumstances."

After that, for some time entering the personnel of the vessel "Prince Pozharsky", Kolchak in September 1899 switched to the squadron battleship "Petropavlovsk" and went to the Far East on it. However, while staying in the Greek port of Piraeus, he received an invitation from the Academy of Sciences from Baron E. V. Toll to take part in the mentioned expedition.

From Greece through Odessa in January 1900, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg. The head of the expedition suggested that Alexander Vasilievich be in charge of hydrological work, and besides, be the second magnetologist. Throughout the winter and spring of 1900, Kolchak prepared for the expedition.

On July 21, 1900, the expedition on the schooner "Zarya" moved along the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas to the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula, where the first wintering was coming. In October 1900, Kolchak participated in Toll's trip to the Gafner fjord, and in April-May 1901, the two of them traveled around Taimyr.

Throughout the expedition, the future admiral carried out active scientific work. In 1901, E. V. Toll immortalized the name of A. V. Kolchak, naming the island in the Kara Sea and the cape discovered by the expedition after him. As a result of the expedition in 1906, he was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

In the spring of 1902, Toll decided to go on foot north of the New Siberian Islands, together with the magnetologist F. G. Seberg and two mushers. The rest of the expedition, due to a lack of food supplies, had to go from Bennett Island to the south, to the mainland, and later return to St. Petersburg. Kolchak and his companions went to the mouth of the Lena and arrived in the capital through Yakutsk and Irkutsk.

Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vasilyevich reported to the Academy on the work done, and also informed about the enterprise of Baron Toll, from whom no news had been received either by that time or later. In January 1903, it was decided to organize an expedition, the purpose of which was to clarify the fate of Toll's expedition.

The expedition took place from May 5 to December 7, 1903. It consisted of 17 people on 12 sledges harnessed by 160 dogs. The journey to Bennett Island took three months and was extremely difficult. On August 4, 1903, having reached Bennett Island, the expedition discovered traces of Toll and his companions: expedition documents, collections, geodetic instruments and a diary were found.

It turned out that Toll arrived on the island in the summer of 1902 and headed south with only 2-3 weeks of provisions. It became clear that Toll's expedition had perished.

In December 1903, the 29-year-old Lieutenant Kolchak, exhausted by the polar expedition, set off on his way back to St. Petersburg, where he was going to marry his bride Sofya Omirova. Not far from Irkutsk, he was caught by the news of the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. He summoned his father and bride by telegram to Siberia, and immediately after the wedding he left for Port Arthur.

The commander of the Pacific squadron, Admiral S. O. Makarov, offered him to serve on the battleship Petropavlovsk, which was the flagship of the squadron from January to April 1904. Kolchak refused and asked for an assignment to the fast cruiser Askold, which soon saved his life.

A few days later, the Petropavlovsk hit a mine and sank rapidly, taking to the bottom more than 600 sailors and officers, including Makarov himself and the famous battle painter V.V. Vereshchagin. Shortly thereafter, Kolchak achieved a transfer to the destroyer "Angry".

Commanded a destroyer. By the end of the siege of Port Arthur, he had to command a coastal artillery battery, as severe rheumatism - a consequence of two polar expeditions - forced him to leave the warship. This was followed by a wound, the surrender of Port Arthur and Japanese captivity, in which Kolchak spent 4 months. Upon his return, he was awarded the St. George weapon - the Golden Saber with the inscription "For Courage".

Freed from captivity, Kolchak received the rank of captain of the second rank. The main task of the group of naval officers and admirals, which included Kolchak, was to develop plans for the further development of the Russian navy.

In 1906, the Naval General Staff was created (including on the initiative of Kolchak), which took over the direct combat training of the fleet. Alexander Vasilyevich was the head of his department of Russian statistics, was engaged in developments on the reorganization of the navy, and spoke in the State Duma as an expert on naval issues.

Then the shipbuilding program was drawn up. To receive additional appropriations, officers and admirals actively lobbied for their program in the Duma. The construction of new ships progressed slowly - 6 (out of 8) battleships, about 10 cruisers and several dozen destroyers and submarines entered service only in 1915-1916, at the height of the First World War, and some of the ships laid down at that time were already being completed in the 1930s.

Taking into account the significant numerical superiority of the potential enemy, the Naval General Staff developed a new plan for the defense of St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland - in case of a threat of attack, all ships of the Baltic Fleet, at the agreed signal, were to go to sea and put up 8 lines of minefields at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, covered by coastal batteries.

Captain of the second rank Kolchak took part in the design of the special icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach", launched in 1909. In the spring of 1910, these ships arrived in Vladivostok, then went on a cartographic expedition to the Bering Strait and Cape Dezhnev, returning by autumn back to Vladivostok.

Kolchak in this expedition commanded the icebreaker "Vaigach". In 1908 he went to work at the Naval Academy. In 1909, Kolchak published his largest study - a monograph summarizing his glaciological research in the Arctic - "The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas" (Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Phys.-Math. Department. St. Petersburg, 1909. T.26, No. 1.).

Participated in the development of an expedition project to explore the Northern Sea Route. In 1909-1910. the expedition, in which Kolchak commanded the ship, made the transition from the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok, and then sailed towards Cape Dezhnev.

Since 1910, at the Naval General Staff, he was involved in the development of a shipbuilding program in Russia.

In 1912, Kolchak transferred to serve in the Baltic Fleet as a flag captain for the operational part of the headquarters of the fleet commander. In December 1913 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank.

To protect the capital from a possible attack by the German fleet, the Mine Division, on the personal order of Admiral Essen, on the night of July 18, 1914, set up minefields in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, without waiting for the permission of the Minister of the Navy and Nicholas II.

In the autumn of 1914, with the personal participation of Kolchak, an operation was developed to mine the blockade of German naval bases. In 1914-1915. destroyers and cruisers, including those under the command of Kolchak, laid mines near Kiel, Danzig (Gdansk), Pillau (modern Baltiysk), Vindava, and even near the island of Bornholm.

As a result, 4 German cruisers were blown up in these minefields (2 of them sank - Friedrich Karl and Bremen (according to other sources, the submarine E-9 was sunk), 8 destroyers and 11 transports.

At the same time, an attempt to intercept a German convoy carrying ore from Sweden, in which Kolchak was directly involved, ended in failure.

In addition to the successful setting of mines, he organized attacks on the caravans of German merchant ships. From September 1915 he commanded a mine division, then naval forces in the Gulf of Riga.

In April 1916 he was promoted to Rear Admiral.

In July 1916, by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Alexander Vasilyevich was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

Here is how Kolchak himself explained the reason for this transfer from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea: “... my assignment to the Black Sea was due to the fact that in the spring of 1917 it was supposed to carry out the so-called Bosphorus operation, that is, to strike at Constantinople ... My question is why exactly I was called when I worked all the time in the Baltic Fleet ... - gene. Alekseev said that the general opinion at the headquarters was such that I personally, according to my properties, can perform this operation more successfully than anyone else.

It was in 1915-1916. A romantic, deep, long-term love relationship between A. V. Kolchak and Anna Vasilievna Timireva begins.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, the Headquarters began preparations for a landing operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned. He received gratitude from the Minister of War Guchkov for his quick reasonable actions, with which he contributed to the preservation of order in the Black Sea Fleet.

However, because of the defeatist propaganda and agitation that penetrated after February 1917 into the army and navy, both the army and the navy began to move towards their collapse. On April 25, 1917, Alexander Vasilievich spoke at a meeting of officers with a report “The situation of our armed forces and relations with the allies.”

Among other things, Kolchak noted: “We are facing the disintegration and destruction of our armed forces, [because] the old forms of discipline have collapsed, and new ones have not been created.”

Kolchak demanded an end to homegrown reforms based on the "conceit of ignorance" and to accept the forms of discipline and organization of internal life already adopted by the Allies.

On April 29, 1917, with the authorization of Kolchak, a delegation of about 300 sailors and Sevastopol workers left Sevastopol with the aim of influencing the Baltic Fleet and the armies of the front, "to wage war actively with full exertion of forces."

On the same day, Alexander Vasilievich handed over the case to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin. Three weeks later, the divers raised the saber from the bottom and handed it to Kolchak, engraving the inscription on the blade: "To the Knight of Honor Admiral Kolchak from the Union of Army and Navy Officers." At this time, Kolchak, along with the General Staff General of Infantry L. G. Kornilov, was considered as a potential candidate for military dictators.

It was for this reason that in August A.F. Kerensky summoned the admiral to Petrograd, where he forced him to resign, after which, at the invitation of the command of the American fleet, he went to the United States to advise American specialists on the experience of using mine weapons by Russian sailors in the Baltic and Black Seas into the First World War.

According to Kolchak, there was another, secret, reason for his trip to the USA: "... Admiral Glenon told me in top secret that in America there is an assumption to take active actions of the American fleet in the Mediterranean Sea against the Turks and the Dardanelles.

Knowing that I was engaged in similar operations, adm. Glenon told me that it would be desirable that I give all the information on the question of landing operations in the Bosphorus. Regarding this landing operation, he asked me not to tell anyone anything and not even inform the government about it, since he will ask the government to send me to America, officially to report information on mines and anti-submarine warfare.

In San Francisco, Kolchak was offered to stay in the United States, promising him a minecraft department at the best naval college and a rich life in a cottage on the ocean. Kolchak refused and went back to Russia.

There he handed over to the British ambassador a request for admission to the English active army "at least as a private." The ambassador, after consultations with London, handed Kolchak a direction to the Mesopotamian front.

On the way there, in Singapore, he was overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Kudashev, inviting him to Manchuria to form Russian military units. Kolchak went to Beijing, after which he set about organizing the Russian armed forces to protect the CER.

However, due to disagreements with Ataman Semyonov and the head of the CER, General Horvat, Admiral Kolchak left Manchuria and left for Russia, intending to join the Volunteer Army of Generals Alekseev and Denikin. In Sevastopol, he left his wife and son.

On October 13, 1918, he arrived in Omsk, from where the next day he sent a letter to General Alekseev (received on the Don in November - after Alekseev's death), in which he expressed his intention to go to the South of Russia in order to enter his disposal as a subordinate.

Meanwhile, a political crisis erupted in Omsk. On November 4, 1918, Kolchak, as a figure popular among officers, was invited to the post of military and naval minister to the Council of Ministers of the so-called "Directory" - a united anti-Bolshevik government located in Omsk, where the majority were Socialist-Revolutionaries.

On the night of November 18, 1918, a coup took place in Omsk - Cossack officers arrested four Social Revolutionary leaders of the Directory, headed by its chairman N. D. Avksentiev. In the current situation, the Council of Ministers - the executive body of the Directory - announced the assumption of all the fullness of the supreme power and then decided to hand it over to one person, giving him the title of Supreme Ruler of the Russian state.

By secret ballot of members of the Council of Ministers, Kolchak was elected to this post. The admiral announced his consent to the election and, with his very first order in the army, announced that he had assumed the title of Supreme Commander.

After coming to power, A.V. Kolchak canceled the order that Jews, as potential spies, were to be evicted from the 100-verst front-line zone.

Addressing the population, Kolchak declared: “Having accepted the cross of this power in the exceptionally difficult conditions of the civil war and the complete breakdown of state life, I declare that I will not follow either the path of reaction or the disastrous path of party spirit.”

The second, inextricably linked with the first, is "victory over Bolshevism." The third task, the solution of which was recognized as possible only under the condition of victory, was proclaimed "the revival and resurrection of the perishing state."

All the activities of the new government were declared aimed at ensuring that “the temporary supreme power of the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief could transfer the fate of the state into the hands of the people, leaving them to arrange state administration of their own free will.”

Kolchak hoped that under the banner of the fight against the Reds he would be able to unite the most diverse political forces and create a new state power. At first, the situation on the fronts favored these plans. In December 1918, the Siberian Army occupied Perm, which was of great strategic importance and had substantial stocks of military equipment.

In March 1919, Kolchak's troops launched an offensive against Samara and Kazan, in April they occupied the entire Urals and approached the Volga.

However, due to the incompetence of Kolchak in matters of organizing and managing the land army (as well as his assistants), the militarily favorable situation soon gave way to a catastrophic one. The dispersal and stretching of forces, the lack of logistics support and the general inconsistency of actions led to the fact that the Red Army was able to first stop Kolchak's troops, and then go on the counteroffensive.

In May, the retreat of Kolchak's troops began, and by August they were forced to leave Ufa, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.

In June 1919, the Supreme Ruler, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, rejected the proposal of K.G. great indivisible Russia.

The result of everything was more than a six-month withdrawal of Kolchak's armies to the east, culminating in the fall of the Omsk regime.

I must say that Kolchak himself was well aware of the fact of a desperate personnel shortage, which ultimately led to the tragedy of his army in 1919. In particular, in a conversation with General Inostrantsev, Kolchak openly stated this sad circumstance: “You will soon see for yourself how poor we are in people, why we have to endure even in high positions, not excluding the posts of ministers, people who are far from corresponding to the places they occupy , but - this is because there is no one to replace them ... "

The same opinions prevailed in the active army. For example, General Shchepikhin said:
“It is incomprehensible to the mind, like amazement, how long-suffering our passion-bearer is, an ordinary officer and soldier. What kind of experiments were not made with him, what kind of kunshtuk did not throw out with his passive participation our “strategic boys” - Kostya (Sakharov) and Mitka (Lebedev) - and the cup of patience still did not overflow ... "

Parts of the armies controlled by Kolchak in Siberia carried out punitive operations in the areas of partisan operations; detachments of the Czechoslovak Corps were also used in these operations. The attitude of Admiral Kolchak towards the Bolsheviks, whom he called "a gang of robbers", "enemies of the people", was extremely negative.

On November 30, 1918, the Kolchak government adopted a decree signed by the Supreme Ruler of Russia, which provided for the death penalty for those guilty of "obstructing" the exercise of power by Kolchak or the Council of Ministers.
Autograph of the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A. V. Kolchak.

Member of the Central Committee of the Social Revolutionaries D.F. Rakov was arrested on the night of the coup d'état in Omsk on November 18, 1918, which put Kolchak in power. Until March 21, 1919, he was in several prisons in Omsk under threat of execution. A description of the time in prison, sent to one of Rakov's comrades, was published in 1920 in the form of a pamphlet with the title “In the dungeons of Kolchak. Voice from Siberia.

The political leaders of the Czechoslovak corps, B. Pavlu and V. Girs, in an official memorandum to the allies in November 1919, stated: The unbearable state in which our army is, forces you to turn to the allied powers with a request for advice on how the Czechoslovak army could ensure its own security and free return to their homeland, the question of which is resolved with the consent of all the Allied Powers. Our army agreed to guard the highway and communication routes in the area determined for it, and this task was performed quite conscientiously. At the present moment, the presence of our troops on the highway and its protection is becoming impossible simply because of aimlessness, as well as due to the most elementary requirements of justice and humanity. Protecting the railway and maintaining order in the country, our army is forced to maintain that state of complete arbitrariness and lawlessness that reigned here. Under the protection of the Czechoslovakian bayonets, the local Russian military authorities allow themselves actions that will horrify the entire civilized world. The burning of villages, the beating of peaceful Russian citizens by hundreds, the executions without trial of representatives of democracy on a simple suspicion of political unreliability are a common occurrence, and the responsibility for everything before the court of the peoples of the whole world falls on you: why we, having military force, did not oppose this lawlessness.

According to G.K. Gins, by issuing this memorandum, the Czech representatives were looking for excuses for their flight from Siberia and evading support for the retreating Kolchak troops, and also sought rapprochement with the left. Simultaneously with the release of the Czech memorandum in Irkutsk, on November 17, 1919, an anti-Kolchak coup was attempted in Vladivostok by the demoted Czech general Gaida.

According to the official conclusion sent by Lenin to Siberia, the head. otd. justice Sibrevkom A. G. Goykhbarg, in the Yekaterinburg province, one of the 12 provinces under the control of Kolchak, about 10% of the two million population, including women and children, were subjected to corporal punishment; in the same province, at least 25 thousand people were shot.

During the suppression of the Bolshevik armed uprising on December 22, 1918, according to official data in the city of Omsk, 49 people were shot by a court-martial, 13 people were sentenced to hard labor and prison, 3 were acquitted, and 133 people were killed during the suppression of the uprising. In the village of Kulomzino (a suburb of Omsk), there were more victims, namely: 117 people were shot by court verdict, 24 were acquitted, and 144 people were killed during the suppression of the rebellion.

More than 625 people were shot during the suppression of the uprising in Kustanai in April 1919, several villages were burned. Kolchak addressed the following order to the suppressors of the uprising: “On behalf of the service, I thank Major General Volkov and all the gentlemen of the officers, soldiers and Cossacks who took part in the suppression of the uprising. The most distinguished ones should be presented for awards”.

On the night of July 30, 1919, an uprising broke out in the Krasnoyarsk military town, in which the 3rd regiment of the 2nd separate brigade and most of the soldiers of the 31st regiment of the 8th division took part, up to 3 thousand people in total.

Having captured the military camp, the rebels launched an offensive against Krasnoyarsk, but were defeated, losing up to 700 people killed. The admiral sent a telegram to General Rozanov, who led the suppression of the uprising: “I thank you, all the commanders, officers, shooters and Cossacks for the excellent work done.”

Bolshevik detachments after the defeat in the fall of 1918 settled in the taiga, mainly north of Krasnoyarsk and in the Minusinsk region, and, replenished with deserters, began to attack the communications of the White Army. In the spring of 1919, they were surrounded and partly destroyed, partly driven even deeper into the taiga, partly fled to China.

The peasantry of Siberia, as well as throughout Russia, who did not want to fight in either the Red or White armies, avoiding mobilization, fled to the forests, organizing "green" gangs. This picture was also observed in the rear of Kolchak's army. But until September-October 1919, these detachments were small in number and did not pose a particular problem for the authorities.

But when the front collapsed in the fall of 1919, the collapse of the army and mass desertion began. Deserters en masse began to join the intensified Bolshevik detachments, as a result of which their number grew to tens of thousands of people.

As A.L. Litvin notes about the period of Kolchak’s rule, “it is difficult to talk about support for his policy in Siberia and the Urals, if out of about 400 thousand red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him, and among them 4-5% were wealthy peasants, or, as they were then called, kulaks"

In 1914-1917, about a third of Russia's gold reserves were sent for temporary storage to England and Canada, and about half was taken to Kazan. Part of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, stored in Kazan (more than 500 tons), was captured on August 7, 1918 by the troops of the People's Army under the command of the General Staff of Colonel V. O. Kappel and sent to Samara, where the Komuch government was established.

For some time, gold was transported from Samara to Ufa, and at the end of November 1918, the gold reserves of the Russian Empire were moved to Omsk and placed at the disposal of the Kolchak government. The gold was deposited at the local branch of the State Bank. In May 1919, it was found that in total there was gold in Omsk in the amount of 650 million rubles (505 tons).

With most of Russia's gold reserves at his disposal, Kolchak did not allow his government to spend gold, even to stabilize the financial system and fight inflation (which was facilitated by the runaway issue of Kerenok and tsarist rubles by the Bolsheviks).

Kolchak spent 68 million rubles on the purchase of weapons and uniforms for his army. On the security of 128 million rubles, loans were received from foreign banks: the proceeds from the placement were returned to Russia.

On October 31, 1919, the gold reserve under heavy guard was loaded into 40 wagons, and accompanying personnel were in 12 wagons. The Trans-Siberian Railway, stretching from Novo-Nikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) to Irkutsk, was controlled by the Czechs, whose main task was their own evacuation from Russia.

Only on December 27, 1919, the headquarters train and the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, where representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchak to sign an order to renounce the rights of the Supreme Ruler of Russia and transfer the echelon with gold reserves under the control of the Czechoslovak Corps.

On January 15, 1920, the Czech command handed over Kolchak to the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, which a few days later handed over the admiral to the Bolsheviks. On February 7, the Czechoslovaks handed over 409 million gold rubles to the Bolsheviks in exchange for guarantees of the unhindered evacuation of the corps from Russia.

The People's Commissariat for Finance of the RSFSR in June 1921 compiled a certificate from which it follows that during the reign of Admiral Kolchak, Russia's gold reserves decreased by 235.6 million rubles, or 182 tons. Another 35 million rubles from the gold reserve disappeared after it was transferred to the Bolsheviks, during transportation from Irkutsk to Kazan.

On January 4, 1920, in Nizhneudinsk, Admiral A. V. Kolchak signed his last Decree, in which he announced his intention to transfer the powers of the “Supreme All-Russian Power” to A. I. Denikin. Until the receipt of instructions from A.I. Denikin, "the fullness of military and civil power throughout the entire territory of the Russian Eastern Outskirts" was provided to Lieutenant General G.M. Semyonov.

On January 5, 1920, a coup took place in Irkutsk, the city was captured by the SR-Menshevik Political Center. On January 15, A. V. Kolchak, who left Nizhneudinsk in the Czechoslovak echelon, in a carriage flying the flags of Great Britain, France, the USA, Japan and Czechoslovakia, arrived in the suburbs of Irkutsk.

The Czechoslovak command, at the request of the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, with the sanction of the French General Janin, handed over Kolchak to his representatives. On January 21, the Political Center transferred power in Irkutsk to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. From January 21 to February 6, 1920, Kolchak was interrogated by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission.

On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral A. V. Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia V. N. Pepelyaev were shot on the banks of the Ushakovka River without trial, by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.

The resolution of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee on the execution of the Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev was signed by A. Shiryamov, the chairman of the committee and its members A. Snoskarev, M. Levenson and the committee manager Oborin.

The text of the decree on the execution of A. V. Kolchak and V. N. Pepelyaev was first published in an article by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov. In 1991, L. G. Kolotilo made the assumption that the decision on execution was drawn up after the execution, as an acquittal document, because it was dated February 7, and S. Chudnovsky and. N. Bursak arrived at two in the morning on February 7, allegedly already with the text of the decree, and before that they had made up a firing squad from the communists.

In the work of V. I. Shishkin in 1998, it is shown that the original of the resolution available in the GARF is dated February 6, and not the seventh, as indicated in the article by A. Shiryamov, who compiled this resolution. However, the same source contains the text of the telegram of the Chairman of the Sibrevkom and a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, I. N. Smirnov, which says that the decision to shoot Kolchak was made at a meeting on February 7. In addition, the interrogation of Kolchak went on all day on February 6. The confusion in the dates in the documents casts doubt on the drawing up of a decision on execution before it was committed.

According to the official version, the execution was carried out out of fear that the units of General Kappel, breaking through to Irkutsk, had the goal of freeing Kolchak. However, as can be seen from the study of V. I. Shishkin, there was no danger of Kolchak's release, and his execution was just an act of political retribution and intimidation.

According to the most common version, the execution took place on the banks of the Ushakovka River near the Znamensky Convent. Samuil Gdalevich Chudnovsky supervised the execution. According to legend, sitting on the ice in anticipation of execution, the admiral sang the song "Burn, burn, my star ...". There is a version that Kolchak himself commanded his execution, since he was the senior in rank among those present. After the execution, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the hole.

Recently, previously unknown documents concerning the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents classified as "secret" were found during the work on the performance of the Irkutsk city theater "Admiral's Star" based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov.

According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentievskaya station (on the banks of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the banks of the Angara. Arriving representatives of the investigating authorities conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak.

Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. The investigators drew up a map on which Kolchak's grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are under examination.

Based on these documents, the Irkutsk historian I.I. Kozlov established the alleged location of Kolchak's grave.

The symbolic grave of Kolchak (the cenotaph) is located in the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery.

Kolchak's wife, Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (1876-1956) was born in 1876 in Kamenetz-Podolsk, Podolsk province of the Russian Empire (now Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine).

Her father was a real Privy Councilor Fyodor Vasilyevich Omirov. Mother Daria Fedorovna, nee Kamenskaya, was the daughter of Major General, Director of the Forestry Institute F. A. Kamensky, sister of the sculptor F. F. Kamensky.

A hereditary noblewoman of the Podolsk province, Sofya Fedorovna was brought up at the Smolny Institute and was a very educated girl (she knew seven languages, she knew French and German perfectly). She was beautiful, strong-willed and independent by nature.

By agreement with Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, they were supposed to get married after his first expedition. In honor of Sophia (at that time the bride) a small island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennett Island were named. The wait dragged on for several years. They got married on March 5, 1904 in the St. Harlampi Church in Irkutsk.

Sofia Fedorovna gave birth to three children from Kolchak: the first girl was born c. 1905 and did not live even a month; son Rostislav Kolchak was born on March 9, 1910, daughter Margarita (1912-1914) caught a cold while fleeing from the Germans from Libava and died.

She lived in Gatchina, then in Libava. After the shelling of Libava by the Germans at the beginning of the war (Aug. 2, 1914), she fled, leaving everything except a few suitcases (Kolchak's state-owned apartment was then looted, and his property perished). From Helsingfors she moved to her husband in Sevastopol, where during the Civil War she waited for her husband to the last.

In 1919, she managed to emigrate from there: the British allies provided her with money and provided her with the opportunity to travel by ship from Sevastopol to Constanta. Then she moved to Bucharest, and then went to Paris. Rostislav was brought there too. Sofia Fedorovna survived the German occupation of Paris and the captivity of her son, an officer in the French army.

She died in the Lunjumeau hospital in Paris in 1956 and was buried in the main cemetery of the Russian diaspora - Saint-Genevieve de Bois. The last request of Admiral Kolchak before the execution was: "I ask you to inform my wife, who lives in Paris, that I bless my son." “I'll let you know,” answered Chekist S. G. Chudnovsky, who was in charge of the execution.

Kolchak's son Rostislav was born on March 9, 1910. At the age of seven, in the summer of 1917, after his father left for Petrograd, he was sent by his mother to his relatives in Kamenetz-Podolsky. In 1919, Rostislav left Russia with his mother and went first to Romania, and then to France, where he graduated from the Higher School of Diplomatic and Commercial Sciences and in 1931 joined the Algiers Bank.

The wife of Rostislav Kolchak was Ekaterina Razvozova, daughter of Admiral Alexander Razvozov. In 1939, Rostislav Alexandrovich was mobilized into the French army, fought on the Belgian border and was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940, after the war he returned to Paris. After the death of his mother, Rostislav Aleksandrovich became the owner of a small family archive.

Poor health, he died on June 28, 1965 and was buried next to his mother in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, where his wife was later buried. Their son Alexander Rostislavovich (b. 1933) now lives in Paris. Members of the public movement "Heritage of Admiral Kolchak" believe:
If the historical and political significance of the figure of Kolchak can be interpreted differently by contemporaries, then his role as a scientist who enriched science with works of paramount scientific importance is absolutely unambiguous and today is clearly underestimated. The slab hung for a little more than a day: on the night of November 6, it was broken by unknown persons. The representative of the Admiral Kolchak's Heritage movement, Valentina Kiseleva, expressed the opinion that the attackers broke the plaque in memory of Kolchak specifically on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution, suggesting the participation of the descendants of the revolutionaries.

After restoration, the board is planned to be installed not in the public domain, but in the courtyard of the chapel of St. Nicholas of Mirlikiy the Wonderworker, in order to hide it from citizens and thus prevent such situations.
* In 2008, it was decided to erect a monument to the Supreme Ruler of Russia in Omsk on the Irtyshskaya embankment.
* In Siberia, several places associated with Kolchak and monuments to the victims of Kolchak have been preserved.
* In October 2008, a film about Kolchak "Admiral" was released. In the fall of 2009, the series "Admiral" was released.
* A number of songs are dedicated to the memory of Kolchak (Alexander Rosenbaum "Romance of Kolchak", Zoya Yashchenko and the "White Guard" - "In Memory of Kolchak". The soundtrack to the film "Admiral" was a song to the verses of Anna Timiryova and music by Igor Matvienko "Anna", the group "Lube ” dedicated the song “My Admiral” to Kolchak), poems and poems are dedicated to him.
* Admiral A. V. Kolchak is dedicated to the song of the poet and performer Kirill Rivel “In Memory of A. V. Kolchak” (1996) from the album “White Wind”. Already after the defeat of Kolchak, the song “English Uniform”, popular in the first post-war years, appeared.

At the end of the Civil War in the Far East and in subsequent years in emigration, February 7 - the day of the execution of the admiral - was celebrated with memorial services in memory of the "killed warrior Alexander" and served as a day of remembrance for all the fallen members of the White movement in the east of the country, primarily those who died during the retreat of Kolchak's army winter 1919-1920 (the so-called "Siberian Ice Campaign").
Kolchak's name is carved on the monument to the heroes of the White movement ("Gallipoli obelisk") at the Parisian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

In Soviet historiography, Kolchak's personality was identified with many negative manifestations of the chaos and lawlessness of the civil war in the Urals and Siberia. The term "Kolchakism" was used as a synonym for a brutal regime. The "classic" general assessment of the activities of his government was the following characteristic - "bourgeois-monarchist reaction."

In the post-Soviet period, the Duma of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug decided to return the name of Kolchak to an island in the Kara Sea, a memorial plaque was opened on the building of the Naval Corps in St. Petersburg, and in Irkutsk, at the place of execution, a cross-monument to the admiral.
Modern memory: Russian kitsch Irkutsk beer Admiral Kolchak.

The question of the legal rehabilitation of A. V. Kolchak was first raised in the mid-1990s, when a number of public organizations and individuals (including Academician D. S. Likhachev, Admiral V. N. Shcherbakov and others) announced the need assessment of the legality of the death sentence to the admiral, handed down by the Bolshevik Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.

In 1998, S. Zuev, head of the Public Foundation for the creation of a temple-museum in memory of the victims of political repression, sent an application to the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office for the rehabilitation of Kolchak, which reached the court.

On January 26, 1999, the military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District recognized A. V. Kolchak as not subject to rehabilitation, since, from the point of view of military lawyers, despite his broad powers, the admiral did not stop the terror carried out by his counterintelligence against the civilian population.

Supporters of the admiral did not agree with these arguments. Hieromonk Nikon (Belavenets), head of the organization "For Faith and Fatherland", appealed to the Supreme Court with a request to file a protest against the refusal to rehabilitate A. V. Kolchak. The protest was submitted to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, which, having considered the case in September 2001, decided not to challenge the decision of the Military Court of the ZabVO.

The members of the Military Collegium decided that the merits of the admiral in the pre-revolutionary period cannot serve as a basis for his rehabilitation: the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee sentenced the admiral to death for organizing military operations against Soviet Russia and mass repressions against the civilian population and Red Army soldiers, and, therefore, was rights.

Admiral's defenders decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court, which in 2000 ruled that the court of the Trans-Baikal Military District had no right to consider the case "without notifying the convict or his defense lawyers of the time and place of the trial." Since the court of the ZabVO in 1999 considered the case on the rehabilitation of Kolchak in the absence of defenders, then, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, the case should be considered again, already with the direct participation of the defense.

In 2004, the Constitutional Court noted that the case for the rehabilitation of the white commander-in-chief and supreme ruler of Russia during the Civil War had not been closed, as the Supreme Court had previously ruled. The members of the Constitutional Court saw that the court of first instance, where the question of the rehabilitation of the admiral was first raised, violated the legal procedure.

The process of legal rehabilitation of A. V. Kolchak causes an ambiguous attitude and that part of society, which, in principle, positively assesses this historical figure. In 2006, the governor of the Omsk region, L.K. Polezhaev, stated that A.V. Kolchak did not need rehabilitation, since "time rehabilitated him, and not the military prosecutor's office."

In 2009, the publishing house "Tsentrpoligraf" published a scientific work by Ph.D. n. S. V. Drokova "Admiral Kolchak and the court of history." On the basis of original documents of the Investigative Case of the Supreme Ruler, the author of the book calls into question the competence of the investigative teams of the prosecutor's offices of 1999-2004. Drokov proves the need for the official withdrawal of specific charges formulated and published by the Soviet government against Admiral A. V. Kolchak.

Kolchak in art
* Thunderstorm over Belaya, 1968 (as Bruno Freindlich)
* "Moonzund", 1988 (in the role - Yuri Belyaev)
* "White Horse", 1993 (as Anatoly Guzenko)
* "Admiral", 2008 (as Konstantin Khabensky)
* "And the eternal battle", (in the role - Boris Plotnikov)
* Song "Lube" "My Admiral"
* Alexander Rosenbaum's song "Kolchak's Romance"
* Sets of postcards “A. V. Kolchak in Irkutsk, parts 1 and 2 (2005). Authors: Andreev S. V., Korobov S. A., Korobova G. V., Kozlov I. I.

Works by A. V. Kolchak
* Kolchak A.V. Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas / Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Phys.-Math. dept. - St. Petersburg: 1909 T. 26, No. 1.
* Kolchak A.V. The last expedition to about. Bennet, equipped by the Academy of Sciences to search for Baron Toll / Izvestiya of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. - St. Petersburg: 1906 T. 42, Issue. 2-3.
* Kolchak V. I., Kolchak A. V. Selected works / Comp. V. D. DOTSENKO. - St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 2001. - 384 p. — ISBN 5-7355-0592-0

Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich - (born 4 (16) November 1874 - death February 7, 1920) military and political figure, leader of the White movement in Russia - Supreme Ruler of Russia, admiral (1918), Russian oceanographer, one one of the largest polar explorers of the late XIX - early XX centuries, full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (1906).

Hero of the Russian-Japanese and World War I, one of the most striking, controversial and tragic figures in Russian history at the beginning of the 20th century.

Education

Alexander Kolchak was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoye, Petersburg district, Petersburg province. Until the third grade, he studied at a classical gymnasium, and in 1888 he moved to the Naval Cadet Corps and 6 years later he graduated second in seniority and academic performance with a cash prize named after Admiral P.I. Rikord. In 1895–1896 the midshipman moved to Vladivostok and served on the ships of the Pacific squadron as a watch officer and junior navigator.

During the voyages, Kolchak visited China, Korea, Japan and other countries, became interested in Eastern philosophy, studied the Chinese language, independently engaged in an in-depth study of oceanography and hydrology. Upon his return, in "Notes on Hydrography" he published the first scientific work "Observations on surface temperatures and specific gravity of sea water, made on the cruisers" Rurik "and" Cruiser "from May 1897 to March 1898."

1898 - Kolchak was promoted to lieutenant. However, after the first campaign, the young officer became disillusioned with military service and began to think about switching to commercial ships. He did not have time to get into the Arctic voyage on the icebreaker "Ermak" with S.O. Makarov. 1899, summer - Alexander Vasilyevich was assigned to inland navigation on the cruiser "Prince Pozharsky". Kolchak filed a report on the transfer to the Siberian crew and the watchman of the battleship "Poltava" went to the Far East.

Polar expedition (1900-1902)

Admiral Kolchak and wife Sofia Feodorovna

Upon the ship's arrival in Piraeus, the lieutenant was offered to take part in the expedition of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in search of the Sannikov Land. 1900, January - by order of the Naval Headquarters, he returned to the capital. For several months he trained at the Main Physical Observatory of St. Petersburg, the Pavlovsk Magnetic Observatory and in Norway to be a hydrologist and a second magnetologist. In 1900-1902, on the schooner Zarya, Kolchak took part in a polar expedition led by Baron E.V. Toll.

He carried out observations of temperatures and specific gravity of the surface layer of sea water, carried out deep-sea work, investigated the state of ice, and collected the remains of mammals. 1901 - together with Toll, Alexander Vasilyevich made a sleigh expedition to the Chelyuskin Peninsula, carried out geographical research and compiled maps of the coast of Taimyr, Kotelny Island, Belkovsky Island, discovered Strizhev Island. Toll named one of the islands in the Kara Sea after Kolchak (now Rastorguev Island), and an island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennet Island are named after Kochak's wife Sophia Fedorovna. The young researcher published the results of the work in the publications of the Academy of Sciences.

Rescue expedition (1903)

1903 - Toll went with the astronomer of the expedition and the Yakut industrialists on a sledge expedition to Cape Vysoky of the New Siberia Island, with the intention of reaching Bennett Island, and disappeared. Upon the return of Zarya, the Academy of Sciences developed two rescue plans. Alexander Vasilievich undertook to fulfill one of them. In 1903–1904 on behalf of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, first on dogs, then on a whaleboat, he crossed from Tiksi Bay to Bennett Island, almost drowning in an ice crack.

The expedition delivered notes, Toll's geological collections, and news of the scientist's death. 1903 - for the polar journey, Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree. 1905 - for "an outstanding geographical feat associated with labor and danger," the Russian Geographical Society presented the future admiral to be awarded the large gold Konstantinovsky medal, and in 1906 elected him a full member.

Russo-Japanese War

1904, March - having learned about the Japanese attack on Port Arthur, Alexander Kolchak handed over the affairs of the expedition, went to the Far East and appeared to Vice Admiral S.O. Makarov. At first, Kolchak was appointed watch commander on the Askold cruiser, from April 1904 he began to act as an artillery officer on the Amur mine transport, from April 21, 1904 he commanded the Angry destroyer and made several bold attacks.

Under the leadership of Kolchak, they set up a minefield on the outskirts of Port Arthur Bay, as well as a mine bank at the mouth of the Amur, on which the Japanese cruiser Takasago was blown up. Kolchak was one of the developers of the expedition plan to break through the blockade of the fortress from the sea and intensify the actions of the fleet against Japanese transports in the Yellow Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

After the death of Makarov, Vitgeft abandoned the plan. From November 2, 1904, until the surrender of the fortress, Kolchak commanded 120-mm and 47-mm batteries on the northeastern wing of the defense of Port Arthur. Wounded, with exacerbation of rheumatism, he was taken prisoner. Alexander Vasilievich was repeatedly awarded for distinctions near Port Arthur: the Order of St. Anne of the 4th degree, a golden saber with the inscription "For Bravery" and the Order of St. Stanislaus of the 2nd degree with swords. 1906 - he received the silver medal "In Memory of the Russo-Japanese War".

Scientific work

As an expert on naval issues, Kolchak sought in the defense commission of the 3rd State Duma government appropriations for the construction of military ships for the Baltic Fleet, in particular 4 dreadnoughts, but could not overcome the resistance of the Duma members, who initially demanded reforms of the maritime department. Disappointed in the possibility of implementing his plans, in 1908 Alexander Vasilievich continued lecturing at the Nikolaev Naval Academy. 1907 - he was promoted to captain-lieutenant, in 1908 - to captain of the 2nd rank.

At the suggestion of the head of the Main Hydrographic Department A.V. Vilkitsky, Kolchak took part in the development of a project for a scientific expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route. 1909, April - Kolchak made a report "North-Eastern passage from the mouth of the river. Yenisei to the Bering Strait" in the Society for the Study of Siberia and the Improvement of its Life. At the same time, the scientist wrote his main work, "The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas", which was published in 1909. Based on observations made during Toll's expedition, it did not lose its significance for a long time.

1909, autumn - icebreaking transports "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" set off from Kronstadt to Vladivostok. These ships made up the expedition of the Arctic Ocean, which was supposed to study the route from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean along the coast of Siberia. Kolchak, as the commander of the Vaigach icebreaker transport, came on it in the summer of 1910 across the Indian Ocean to Vladivostok, then sailed to the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea, where he performed hydrological and astronomical studies.

Return to the Naval General Staff

The scientist failed to continue his activities in the North. In the autumn he was recalled from the expedition, and from the end of 1910 Kolchak was appointed head of the Baltic Operational Directorate of the Naval General Staff. Alexander Vasilyevich was involved in the development of the Russian shipbuilding program (in particular, ships of the Izmail type), taught at the Nikolaev Maritime Academy, and as an expert of the State Duma sought to increase appropriations for shipbuilding. 1912, January - he presented a note on the reorganization of the Naval General Staff. Kolchak prepared the book "Service of the General Staff: messages on the additional course of the naval department of the Nikolaev Naval Academy, 1911-1912", in which he insisted on the introduction of complete autocracy of the commander in the fleet. He firmly pursued this idea in all the posts he occupied.

Service in the Baltic Fleet

1912, spring - at the suggestion of Admiral N.O. Essen, Kolchak took command of the destroyer Ussuriets. 1913, December - for excellent service, he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank, appointed flag captain of the operational unit of the headquarters of the commander of the naval forces of the Baltic Sea and at the same time commander of the destroyer "Border Guard" - the admiral's messenger ship.

World War I

At the beginning of the First World War, a captain of the 1st rank made up the disposition of wartime operations in the Baltic, organized the successful laying of mines and attacks on the caravans of German merchant ships. 1915, February - 4 destroyers under his command put up about 200 mines in the Danzig Bay, on which 12 warships and 11 enemy transports were blown up, which forced the German command to temporarily not put the ships out to sea.

1915, summer - on the initiative of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, the battleship Slava was brought into the Gulf of Riga to cover mine laying off the coast. These productions deprived the advancing German troops of the support of the fleet. Temporarily commanding the Mine Division since September 1915, since December he was also the head of the defense of the Gulf of Riga. Using the artillery of the ships, he helped the army of General D.R. Radko-Dmitriev repel the onslaught of the enemy at Kemmern. The landing in the rear of the enemy troops, which was landed in accordance with the tactical plan of Kolchak, played its role.

For successful attacks on the caravans of German ships that delivered ore from Sweden, Kolchak was presented with the Order of St. George, 4th degree. 1916, April 10 - he was promoted to rear admiral, and on June 28 he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet with promotion "for distinction in service" to vice admiral. Kolchak did not want to go to the unfamiliar maritime theater. But he was able to quickly get used to it, and already in July 1916, on the battleship Empress Maria, he took part in a raid of Russian ships in the Black Sea, started a battle with the Turkish cruiser Breslau. A month later, under the command of Kolchak, the blockade of the Bosphorus and the coal region of Eregli-Zonguldak was strengthened, massive mining of enemy ports was carried out, as a result of which the exits of enemy ships into the Black Sea almost stopped.

After the February Revolution

1917, March 12 - Admiral Kolchak swore the fleet to the Provisional Government. Alexander Vasilievich actively fought against the revolutionary "fermentation" and the gradual decline of discipline in the fleet. A supporter of the continuation of the war to a victorious end, he opposed the end of hostilities. When, under the influence of agitators who arrived from the Baltic, the sailors began to disarm the officers, Kolchak in mid-June 1917 transferred command to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin and, at the request of Kerensky, went with the chief of staff to Petrograd to explain the unauthorized resignation. Speaking at a government meeting, Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich accused him of the collapse of the army and navy.

In America

1917, early August - the vice admiral was appointed head of the naval mission in America. Upon arrival in Washington, he made his proposals for the planned landing in the Dardanelles, and was collecting technical information about American military preparations. 1917, early October - the admiral took part in naval maneuvers on the American battleship Pennsylvania. Realizing that the Americans did not intend to help Russia in the war, by mid-October he decided to return to his homeland.

In Japan

But, having arrived in Japan in November 1917, Kolchak learned about the establishment of Soviet power and the intention of the Bolsheviks to make peace with Germany, after which he decided not to return. He considered the Bolsheviks to be German agents. Since the war took possession of his entire being, the admiral at the beginning of December 1917 turned to the British ambassador in Japan with a request to accept him into the British military service. 1917, the end of December - agreement followed. 1918, January - Kolchak went from Japan to the Mesopotamian front, where Russian and British troops fought with the Turks. But in Singapore, he received an order from the London government to come to Beijing to the Russian envoy, Prince N.A. Kudashev, to work in Manchuria and Siberia.

In China

In Beijing, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was elected a member of the board of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). From April to September 21, 1918, he was engaged in the creation of armed forces for the defense of the CER. Obviously, those who chose the candidacy of the vice-admiral were impressed by his determination. But soon Kolchak's political unpreparedness fully affected. The admiral promised to restore order, intended to create a stronghold in the Far East to fight the Bolsheviks. But at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief they were unhappy that he did not understand anything in military affairs and demanded an immediate campaign against Vladivostok, not having sufficient forces.

Civil War

Kolchak entered into a struggle with Ataman Semenov, relying on the detachment of Colonel Orlov created by him, which was not much different from the Ataman. In an attempt to remove Kolchak, he threatened to call in the troops. Until the end of June, the situation remained uncertain. The commander tried to launch an offensive. But the Chinese refused to let the Russian troops through, and the admiral left for Japan. Kolchak did not know what to do. He even had the idea to go back to the British on the Mesopotamian front. Finally, he decided to make his way to the Volunteer Army of General M.V. Alekseev. Along the way, in October 1918, he arrived in Omsk with the English General A. Knox.

On October 14, the commander-in-chief of the forces of the Ufa directory, V.G. Boldyrev, invited the admiral to enter the government. On November 4, by decree of the local Provisional Government, Kolchak was appointed military and naval minister and immediately went to the front.

"Supreme ruler"

The activities of the directory, which was a coalition of different parties, including the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, did not suit Kolchak. On November 17, having entered into a conflict over the relationship of the directory to the naval ministry, the admiral retired. Relying on reliable troops, on November 18, he arrested the members of the directory and convened an emergency meeting of the Council of Ministers, at which he was promoted to admiral and transferred power with the title "Supreme Ruler".

Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich granted the commanders of military districts the right to declare areas under a state of siege, close press organs and impose death sentences. With cruel measures, the admiral fought against the opponents of his dictatorship, at the same time, with the support of the allies, increasing and arming his regiments.

1918, December - as a result of the Perm operation, Kolchak's troops took Perm and continued their offensive deep into Soviet Russia. The first successes drew the attention of the allies to Kolchak. On January 16, the Supreme Ruler signed an agreement on coordinating the actions of the White Guards and interventionists.

French General M. Janin became the commander-in-chief of the troops of the allied states in Eastern Russia and Western Siberia, and the English general A. Knox became the head of the rear and supply of the Kolchak troops. Significant deliveries of military equipment and weapons from America, England, France, and Japan made it possible to increase the strength of Kolchak's armies to 400,000 by the spring. The admiral organized the attack. In March, the Eastern Front of the Red Army was broken through. Part of the Kolchak troops moved to Kotlas to organize the supply of supplies through the northern seas, while the main forces made their way to the south-west to join with A.I. Denikin.

The successful offensive of the Kolchakites, who took Buguruslan on April 15, prompted French Prime Minister J. Clemenceau to recommend that Janin attack Moscow with the main forces, and join Denikin on the left flank and form a united front. It seemed that this plan was quite feasible. Kolchak's troops approached Samara and Kazan at the end of April. In May, Kolchak's supreme power was recognized by A.I. Denikin, N.N. Yudenich and E.K. Miller.

But the unsuccessful choice of Kolchak's closest assistants, the extreme optimism of the commander of the Siberian Army, Lieutenant General Gaida and his young generals, who incorrectly assessed the situation and promised to enter Moscow in a month and a half, soon affected. As a result of the counter-offensive of the Red Army in May-June 1919, the best Siberian and Western armies of Kolchak were defeated and rolled back far to the east.

Arrest and execution of Admiral Kolchak

Siberians did not like the restoration of autocratic government; partisan movement was growing in the rear. The allies had a huge influence, on the supplies of which the actions of the army depended. Defeats at the front caused panic in the rear. In October, the evacuation of Czech troops caused the families of the White Guards to flee from Omsk. Hundreds of echelons blocked the railroad.

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak tried to democratize power, but it was too late. The front has collapsed. The Czechs arrested Kolchak, who was moving under the protection of the Allied flags, and on January 15, 1920, at the Innokentievskaya station, they surrendered to the Socialist Revolutionary-Menshevik "Political Center".

The Center transferred Admiral Kolchak to the Bolshevik Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee (VRK). Interrogations began on January 21. At first, it was supposed to send the admiral to the capital, but, having received instructions from Moscow, the Military Revolutionary Committee shot Kolchak and Pepelyaev on February 7, 1920.

Kolchak Alexander Vasilyevich - a prominent military leader and statesman of Russia, a polar explorer. During the civil war, he entered the historical chronicles as the leader of the White movement. The assessment of Kolchak's personality is one of the most controversial and tragic pages of Russian history of the 20th century.

Obzorfoto

Alexander Kolchak was born on November 16, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoe in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, in a family of hereditary nobles. Rod Kolchakov gained fame in the military field, serving the Russian Empire for many centuries. His father was a hero of the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean campaign.

Education

Until the age of 11 he was educated at home. In 1885-88. Alexander studied at the 6th gymnasium of St. Petersburg, where he graduated from three classes. Then he entered the Naval Cadet Corps, where he showed excellent success in all subjects. As the best student in scientific knowledge and behavior, he was enrolled in the class of midshipmen and appointed sergeant major. He graduated from the Cadet Corps in 1894 with the rank of midshipman.

Carier start

From 1895 to 1899, Kolchak served in the military Baltic and Pacific fleets, made three trips around the world. He was engaged in independent research of the Pacific Ocean, most of all interested in its northern territories. In 1900, a capable young lieutenant was transferred to the Academy of Sciences. At this time, the first scientific works began to appear, in particular, an article was published on his observations of sea currents. But the goal of the young officer is not only theoretical, but also practical research - he dreams of going on one of the polar expeditions.

Blogger

Interested in his publications, the well-known Arctic explorer Baron E. V. Toll invites Kolchak to take part in the search for the legendary Sannikov Land. Having gone in search of the missing Toll, he on a whaleboat from the schooner "Zarya", and then on a dog sled makes a risky transition and finds the remains of the lost expedition. During this dangerous campaign, Kolchak caught a bad cold and miraculously survived after severe pneumonia.

Russo-Japanese War

In March 1904, immediately after the outbreak of the war, not having fully recovered from his illness, Kolchak was sent to the besieged Port Arthur. The destroyer "Angry" under his command took part in the installation of barrage mines dangerously close to the Japanese raid. Thanks to these hostilities, several enemy ships were blown up.

Letanovosti

In the last months of the siege, he commanded coastal artillery, which inflicted significant damage on the enemy. During the fighting he was wounded, after the capture of the fortress he was taken prisoner. In recognition of his fighting spirit, the command of the Japanese army left Kolchak weapons and freed him from captivity. For his heroism, he was awarded:

St. George's weapons;
Orders of St. Anna and St. Stanislav.

The struggle to recreate the fleet

After treatment in the hospital, Kolchak receives a six-month vacation. Sincerely experiencing the almost complete loss of his native fleet in the war with Japan, he is actively involved in the work of its revival.

Gossip

In June 1906, Kolchak headed a commission at the Naval General Staff to find out the reasons that led to the defeat near Tsushima. As a military expert, he often spoke at State Duma hearings with justification for allocating the necessary funding.

His project, dedicated to the realities of the Russian fleet, became the theoretical basis for the entire Russian military shipbuilding in the pre-war period. As part of its implementation, Kolchak in 1906-1908. personally supervises the construction of four battleships and two icebreakers.

For his invaluable contribution to the study of the Russian North, Lieutenant Kolchak was elected a member of the Russian Geographical Society. The nickname "Kolchak-Polar" stuck behind him.

At the same time, Kolchak continues to work on systematizing the materials of past expeditions. His work on the ice cover of the Kara and Siberian Seas, published by him in 1909, was recognized as a new step in the development of polar oceanography for the study of ice cover.

World War I

The Kaiser command was preparing for the blitzkrieg of St. Petersburg. Henry of Prussia, the commander of the German fleet, expected already in the first days of the war to pass through the Gulf of Finland to the capital and subject it to hurricane fire from powerful guns.

Having destroyed important objects, he intended to land troops, capture St. Petersburg and put an end to the military claims of Russia. The implementation of Napoleonic projects was hindered by the strategic experience and brilliant actions of Russian naval officers.

Gossip

Given the significant superiority of the number of German ships, the tactics of mine warfare was recognized as the initial strategy for fighting the enemy. During the first days of the war, the Kolchak division laid 6,000 mines in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. Skillfully placed mines became a reliable shield for the defense of the capital and thwarted the plans of the German fleet to capture Russia.

In the future, Kolchak persistently defended plans for the transition to more aggressive actions. Already at the end of 1914, a brave operation was undertaken to mine the Danzig Bay directly off the coast of the enemy. As a result of this operation, 35 enemy warships were blown up. The successful actions of the naval commander determined his subsequent promotion.

Sanmati

In September 1915, he was appointed commander of the Mine Division. In early October, he undertook a bold maneuver to land troops on the coast of the Gulf of Riga to help the armies of the Northern Front. The operation was carried out so successfully that the enemy did not even guess about the presence of the Russians.

In June 1916, A. V. Kolchak was promoted by the Sovereign to the rank of Commander-in-Chief of the Black Sea Fleet. In the photo, a talented naval commander is depicted in dress uniform with all military regalia.

revolutionary time

After the February Revolution, Kolchak was faithful to the emperor to the end. Hearing the proposal of the revolutionary sailors to hand over their weapons, he threw the award saber overboard, arguing his act with the words: “Even the Japanese did not take away my weapon, I will not give it to you either!”

Arriving in Petrograd, Kolchak laid the blame on the ministers of the Provisional Government for the collapse of his own army and country. After that, the dangerous admiral was actually removed into political exile at the head of an allied military mission to America.

In December 1917, he asked the British government to enlist in the military. However, certain circles are already counting on Kolchak as an authoritative leader capable of rallying the liberation struggle against Bolshevism.

The Volunteer Army operated in the South of Russia, in Siberia and in the East there were many disparate governments. Having united in September 1918, they created the Directory, the inconsistency of which inspired distrust in broad officer and business circles. They needed a "strong hand" and, having made a white coup, invited Kolchak to accept the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia.

Goals of the Kolchak government

Kolchak's policy was to restore the foundations of the Russian Empire. All extremist parties were banned by his decrees. The government of Siberia wanted to achieve reconciliation of all groups of the population and parties, without the participation of left and right radicals. An economic reform was prepared, involving the creation of an industrial base in Siberia.

The highest victories of Kolchak's army were achieved in the spring of 1919, when it occupied the territory of the Urals. However, following the successes, a series of failures began, caused by a number of miscalculations:

Kolchak's incompetence in the problems of state administration;
refusal to settle the agrarian question;
partisan and socialist-revolutionary resistance;
political disagreements with allies.

In November 1919, Kolchak was forced to leave Omsk; in January 1920, he gave his powers to Denikin. As a result of the betrayal of the allied Czech Corps, he was handed over to the revolutionary committee of the Bolsheviks, who seized power in Irkutsk.

Death of Admiral Kolchak

The fate of the legendary personality ended tragically. The cause of death, some historians call a personal secret instruction, who feared his release by the troops of Kappel rushing to the rescue. A. V. Kolchak was shot on February 7, 1920 in Irkutsk.

In the 21st century, the negative assessment of Kolchak's personality has been revised. His name is immortalized on memorial plaques, monuments, in feature films.

Personal life

Kolchak's wife, Sophia Omirova, hereditary noblewoman. Due to the protracted expedition, she waited for her fiancé for several years. Their wedding took place in March 1904 in the Irkutsk church.

Three children were born in the marriage:

The first daughter, born in 1905, died in infancy.
Son Rostislav, born March 9, 1910
Daughter Margarita, born in 1912, died at the age of two.

Sofia Omirova in 1919, with the help of the British allies, emigrated with her son to Constanta, and later to Paris. She died in 1956 and was buried in the cemetery of Russian Parisians.

Son Rostislav - an employee of the Algiers Bank, participated in battles with the Germans on the side of the French army. Died in 1965. Kolchak's grandson - Alexander, born in 1933, lives in Paris.

The last years of his life, Kolchak's actual wife was his last love. Acquaintance with the admiral took place in 1915 in Helsingfors, where she arrived with her husband, a naval officer. After a divorce in 1918, she followed the admiral. She was arrested along with Kolchak, and after his execution she spent almost 30 years in various exiles and prisons. She was rehabilitated and died in 1975 in Moscow.

Alexander Kolchak was baptized in the Trinity Church, which is known today as Kulich and Easter.
During one of the polar campaigns, Kolchak named the island after the name of his bride, who was waiting for him in the capital. Cape Sofya retains the name given by him to our time.
A. V. Kolchak became the fourth polar navigator in history to receive the highest award of the Geographical Society - the Konstantinovsky Medal. Before him, this honor was awarded to the great F. Nansen, N. Nordenskiöld, N. Jurgens.
The maps compiled by Kolchak were used by Soviet sailors until the end of the 1950s.
Before his death, Kolchak did not accept the offer to blindfold. He presented his cigarette case to the commander of the execution, an employee of the Cheka.

If the revolution had not happened, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak would undoubtedly have become the pride of Russia as a polar explorer, scientist, and naval commander. For decades, this phrase "Admiral Kolchak" was perceived, on the one hand, by the defeated in the civil war participants in the "white cause" with deep respect, in any case - with understanding; on the other hand, the Bolsheviks, the Reds, many Soviet people who were brought up on the Marxist-Leninist principles of class intolerance with hatred or sharp hostility. The White movement set as its goal the restoration of a "united and indivisible" Russia. The Russian nationalism of the whites coincided with the uncontrollably growing local nationalism on the outskirts of the Russian state, where the center of the struggle against the Bolsheviks turned out to be. The White movement did not have a leader whose authority would be recognized by all, did not have a leader who understood the political nature of the civil war. Nevertheless, Kolchak is the leader of the white movement, and this is beyond doubt. The tragic fate of this great man, whose services to the Motherland were erased in the long history of the Soviet period.

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak is the Supreme Ruler of Russia, an outstanding personality with many-sided talent and controversial character. Russian admiral, participant in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars, commander of the Black Sea Fleet (1916-1917), organizer of the white movement in Siberia, Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920). Member of expeditions in the Arctic Ocean and the Arctic, full member of the Russian Geographical Society, author of articles on hydrology and compiler of sea and coast maps. He was awarded the Orders of St. George 4th (1916) and 3rd (1919) degrees and other orders, a large Konstantinovsky gold medal from the Russian Hydrographic Society.

Born November 4, 1874 in the family of a naval artillery officer in St. Petersburg, in a noble family. His father, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak, was a native and hereditary nobleman of Odessa, an Orthodox Christian. His father, at that time a staff captain, and later a major general, was a hereditary military man. The great-grandfather of the future commander, Luka Kolchak, became the centurion of the Bug Cossack army, and his father Vasily Ivanovich served as a naval gunner and retired as a major general. Uncles in the male line had high ranks in the Navy. The noble family of the mother, Olga Ilyinichna Possokhova, was also known, whose grandfather became the last Odessa mayor.

As a child, Kolchak received a good education at home. Sasha studied at the gymnasium for only three years and at the age of 14 he entered the Naval Cadet Corps, from which he graduated second in academic performance. His success in training was awarded the Admiral P.I. Rikord - the famous navigator and corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. Kolchak's track record consists of two parts: military deeds and scientific expeditions. He left the naval corps in 1894 with the rank of midshipman. The following year, Kolchak was appointed assistant watch officer on the battleship Rurik and sailed from Petersburg to Vladivostok on it. In 1896, he was transferred as a watchman to the Kreyser clipper, on which he returned to St. Petersburg. Kolchak later recalled his service on the Rurik and Cruiser: “It was my first voyage ... The main task was purely combatant on the ship, but, in addition, I specially worked on oceanography and hydrology. Since that time, I began to engage in scientific work: “I had a dream to find the South Pole; but I never got on a voyage to the southern ocean "Bogdanov K.A. Admiral Kolchak - biographical story-chronicle; SPb, 1993 p. eighteen . Admiral Tsyvinsky, who commanded the Cruiser, later recalled midshipman Kolchak: “He was an unusually capable and talented officer, he had a rare memory, spoke perfectly three European languages, knew well the sailing directions of all seas, knew the history of all almost European fleets and sea battles " .

In 1898 Kolchak was promoted to lieutenant. Upon learning that Baron Toll was preparing a high-latitude expedition on the Zarya whaling yacht (his main goal was to search for the legendary Sannikov Land), Kolchak turned to Academician Schmidt with a request to take him into the crew. He was offered the post of second magnetologist with hydrology classes. In order to prepare for the duties assigned to him, Kolchak asked to be appointed to work at the Main Physical Observatory in St. Petersburg and the Pavlovsk Magnetic Observatory. Then he went to Norway to Nansen to study new methods of magnetic measurements and to study hydrology.

The expedition began in the summer of 1900 and lasted three years. She was very heavy. Toll spent his first wintering near the island of Taimyr. Here Kolchak made observations on the temperatures and specific gravity of the surface layer of sea water, studied the shape, condition and thickness of the ice, and participated in the collection of fossil remains of mammals. In the autumn of 1901, the Zarya approached Cape Chelyuskin. Toll and Kolchak made an expedition to the peninsula. In 41 days they traveled 500 miles in a strong blizzard, and Kolchak constantly surveyed the route and made magnetic observations. Then the yacht moved through clear water to Bennett Island and began searching for Sannikov Land to the east of the Novosibirsk archipelago. For the second wintering, the expedition stopped at the western coast of Kotelny Island in the Zarya Strait. In the summer of 1902, Toll, with three companions, with dog teams and kayaks, went to explore Bennett Island. From this expedition, he intended to return on his own. Meanwhile, the Zarya, unable to break through the ice to the north, reached the mouth of the Lena. From here Kolchak with part of the crew through Yakutsk and Irkutsk arrived in St. Petersburg.

Since Baron Toll did not return at the appointed time, the Academy of Sciences began to equip detachments to search for him. Kolchak headed one of them. In the spring of 1903, he reached the mouth of the Lena by land, where the abandoned Zarya stood, and took one of the good whaling whaleboats from her. Together with 16 companions, on dogs dragging a whaleboat on sleds, he crossed from the mouth of the Yana to Kotelny Island, and in the summer he went on a whaleboat to Bennett Island. Here Kolchak found Toll's abandoned winter hut and a letter testifying to the death of the entire detachment. This expedition took place in extremely difficult conditions. But still, he managed to get to the mainland and delivered Toll's documents and geological collections to the capital. For the courage shown in this expedition, Kolchak in 1903 was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir. In 1905, the Russian Geographical Society awarded him a large Konstantinovsky gold medal, and in February 1906 he was elected a member of this society. One of the islands in the Kara Sea was named after Kolchak (at the end of the 1930s it was renamed Rastorguev Island).

The beginning of the Russo-Japanese War found Kolchak in Yakutsk. In an urgent telegram to the Academy of Sciences in January 1904, he asked permission to go to the Pacific squadron and received consent. In March, he married Sofya Omirova, handed over his affairs to his assistant Olenin and went to Port Arthur. Vice-Admiral Makarov first appointed Kolchak as a watchman on the Askold cruiser, then transferred to the Amur mine transport and, finally, made the captain of the Angry destroyer. During the siege of Port Arthur, this destroyer made several bold attacks on the Japanese squadron. Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Anne with the inscription "For Courage", a golden saber with the inscription "For Courage" and the Order of St. Stanislav with swords for distinction. In November 1904, he was appointed commander of two batteries in the northeastern wing of the defense of Port Arthur. After the surrender of the fortress, wounded, with a severe form of articular rheumatism, Kolchak was captured by the Japanese, who, however, treated him very gently. Together with other wounded, Kolchak was allowed to return to Russia through the United States. In April 1905 he was already in St. Petersburg.

After a long treatment and rest on the waters, Kolchak returned to the disposal of the Academy of Sciences. Until January 1906, he processed the materials of the polar expedition and compiled a brief description of the voyage of the Zarya yacht. When the Directorate of the Naval General Staff was formed, Kolchak took the post of head of the statistical department, and then the department for developing strategic ideas for the defense of the Baltic. At the same time, he lectured at the Naval Academy and was engaged in scientific activities. In 1909, his most important work, The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas, was published, which for many years later was considered an important manual for any polar explorer. Kolchak dreamed of making another polar expedition. In 1909, with his direct participation, the Taimyr and Vaigach icebreaking transports were built, which were tasked with passing the northern sea route from Vladivostok to Murmansk. Kolchak was appointed captain of the Vaigach. In autumn, the ships set sail from St. Petersburg around Europe and Asia to the Pacific Ocean. However, this time Kolchak did not have a chance to take part in the polar voyage. In the summer of 1910, when the ships arrived in Vladivostok, he was urgently recalled to the capital to develop a shipbuilding program. Until the spring of 1912, he was engaged in its detailing at the General Staff.

In 1912, Kolchak returned to the active fleet. In April, he was appointed commander of the Ussuriets destroyer, and a year later he was transferred to the Border Guard destroyer. In December 1913, Kolchak was promoted to captain of the 1st Rank. After the outbreak of the First World War, he again managed to distinguish himself. In February 1915, four destroyers subordinate to him mined the sea near Danzig. These mines blew up 23 German ships, including 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers. For this and other operations, Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. George. His career developed rapidly. In June 1916, Kolchak was promoted to rear admiral, and a few months later he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet with promotion to vice admiral. Arriving in Sevastopol, Kolchak immediately showed himself to be an energetic commander. He immediately went to sea and attacked the German cruiser Breslau, which was forced to flee. After that, work began on mining coastal waters. A month later, Kolchak reported on the results of his tenure as commander: “From the first days ... I set about putting things in order on the mines of the barrier, meaning the setting of the barrier at the Bosphorus ... Apparently, this case was not given in the Black Sea of serious importance ... 10 days of training and sorting of mines set this business up, and the new destroyers completed the task of setting up a barrier and the immediate vicinity of the Bosphorus fortifications ”Bogdanov K.A. Admiral Kolchak: Biographical story-chronicle; SPb, 1993 p. 25.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, the Headquarters began preparations for a landing operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned. Kolchak received gratitude from the Minister of War Guchkov for his quick reasonable actions, by which he contributed to maintaining order in the Black Sea Fleet.

However, due to the defeatist propaganda and agitation that penetrated the army and navy after February 1917 under the guise and cover of freedom of speech, both the army and the navy began to move towards their collapse. On April 25, 1917, Alexander Vasilievich spoke at a meeting of officers with a report “The situation of our armed forces and relations with the allies.” Among other things, Kolchak noted: "We are facing the collapse and destruction of our armed forces, [because] the old forms of discipline have collapsed, and new ones have not been created."

Kolchak demanded an end to homegrown reforms based on the "conceit of ignorance" and to accept the forms of discipline and organization of internal life already adopted by the Allies.

In June 1917, the Sevastopol Soviet decided to disarm the officers suspected of counter-revolution, including taking away from Kolchak his St. George weapon - the golden saber handed to him for Port Arthur. The admiral preferred to throw the blade overboard with the words: "The newspapers do not want us to have weapons, so let him go to sea." On the same day, Alexander Vasilievich handed over the case to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin. Three weeks later, the divers raised the saber from the bottom and handed it to Kolchak, engraving the inscription on the blade: "To the Knight of Honor Admiral Kolchak from the Union of Army and Navy Officers." At this time, Kolchak, along with the General Staff, General of Infantry L.G. Kornilov, was considered as a potential candidate for military dictators.

It is for this reason that in August A.F. Kerensky summoned the admiral to Petrograd, where he forced him to resign, after which, at the invitation of the command of the American fleet, he went to the United States to advise American specialists on the experience of using mine weapons by Russian sailors in the Baltic and Black Seas in the First World War. According to Kolchak, there was another, secret, reason for his trip to the USA: “... Admiral Glenon told me in top secret that in America there is an assumption to take active actions of the American fleet in the Mediterranean against the Turks and the Dardanelles. Knowing that I was engaged in similar operations, Admiral Glenon told me that it would be desirable that I give all the information on the question of landing operations in the Bosphorus. Regarding this landing operation, he asked me not to tell anyone anything and not even inform the government about it, since he will ask the government to send me to America, officially to report information on mines and anti-submarine warfare.

In San Francisco, Kolchak was offered to stay in the United States, promising him a minecraft department at the best naval college. Kolchak refused and went back to Russia.

Arriving in Japan, Kolchak learned about the October Revolution, the liquidation of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and the negotiations begun by the Bolsheviks with the Germans. He agreed to a telegram proposing his candidacy to the Constituent Assembly from the Cadets and a group of non-party people in the Black Sea Fleet District, but his answer was received late. The admiral left for Tokyo. There he presented the British Ambassador with a request for admission to the British army in the field. The ambassador, after consultations with London, handed Kolchak a direction to the Mesopotamian front. On the way there, in Singapore, he was overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Kudashev, inviting him to Manchuria to form Russian military units. Kolchak went to Beijing, after which he set about organizing the Russian armed forces to protect the CER. However, due to disagreements with Ataman Semyonov and the head of the CER, General Horvat, Admiral Kolchak left Manchuria and left for Russia, intending to join the Volunteer Army of Generals Alekseev and Denikin.