Yakov Yurovsky, whose biography will be the topic of our article today, was a Russian revolutionary, a Soviet statesman and party leader, a security officer. He directly led the execution of Nicholas II, the last Russian emperor, and his family.
early years
Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (his real name and patronymic is Yankel Khaimovich) was born on June 7 (19), 1878 in the city of Kainsk, Tomsk province (Kuibyshev since 1935). He was the eighth of ten children and grew up in a large Jewish working-class family.
Mother was a seamstress, father was a glazier. Jacob studied at a primary school in the river district, and since 1890 began to study craft. Then he worked as an apprentice in Tomsk, Tobolsk, Feodosia, Yekaterinodar, Batumi.
The beginning of revolutionary activity
Yakov Yurovsky joined the revolutionary activity (photo below) in Tomsk in 1905. There is some indirect evidence that he first took part in the military organizations of the Bund, and after that, following the example of his close friend Sverdlov, he joined the Bolsheviks.
Yurovsky distributed Marxist literature, and when the clandestine printing house failed, he was forced to leave Russia and settled in Berlin, where he transferred to Lutheranism with his whole family (three children and his wife Maria Yakovlevna).
Homecoming
In 1912, Yakov illegally returned to Russia, but he was tracked down and arrested by agents of the security department. Yurovsky was expelled from Tomsk for "harmful activities", but he was allowed to choose a place of residence. So he found himself in Yekaterinburg.
In the Ural city, Yakov Yurovsky opened a watch and photo workshop, and, as he himself describes it, the "gendarmerie" found fault with him, forcing him to take photographs of prisoners and suspicious persons. Nevertheless, at the same time, his workshop was a laboratory for the production of passports for the Bolsheviks.
Yurovsky in 1916 was called to serve as a paramedic in a local hospital. So he became an active agitator in the mass of soldiers. After the February Revolution, Yakov sold a photo workshop and organized a Bolshevik printing house called "The Ural Worker" with the proceeds. Yurovsky became a prominent Bolshevik, a member of the Council of Soldiers' Deputies and Workers, one of the leaders of the revolution in the Urals.
The execution of the royal family
Yakovsky entered the history as the leader and one of the main participants in the execution of the sentence on the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. In July 1918, he was appointed commandant of the Ipatiev House, and by decision of the Ural Council on the night of July 16-17 he directly led the execution of the execution of the imperial family.
There is a version that Yakov Yurovsky compiled a special document for the execution, including a list of executioners. However, the results of historical research indicate that such a document, provided at one time by an Austrian, a former prisoner of war I.P. Meyer and published in 1984 by E.E. Alferyev in the United States of America, is most likely fabricated and does not reflect the real list of participants in the execution.
Subsequent years of life
When the whites entered Yekaterinburg on July 25, 1918, Yakov Yurovsky moved to Moscow and became a member of the Moscow Cheka, as well as the head of the district Cheka. After returning to Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks were appointed chairman of the Ural GubChK. Yurovsky settled almost opposite the execution house - in the rich mansion of Agushevich. In 1921 he was sent to head the gold department in Gokhran with the goal of “bringing the values ​​stored there in a liquid state”.
Then, Jacob worked in the foreign exchange department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, where he was chairman of the trade department, and in 1923 he became deputy director of the Krasny Bogatyr plant. Since 1928, Yurovsky worked as the director of the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. He died in 1938 from perforation of a duodenal ulcer (according to the official version).
Yakov Yurovsky: descendants
Yurovsky had a large family. With his wife, they gave birth to three children: daughter Rimma (1898), sons of Alexander (1904) and Eugene (1909). They lived comfortably, kept a servant. In the upbringing of the offspring, the head of the family, constantly employed in the service, did not particularly participate, but in which case he punished him severely. All heirs received higher education.
Jacob was very fond of his daughter - an excellent student, a black-haired beauty. She gave him the grandson of Anatoly. But, apparently, indeed, the descendants have to pay for the sins of their fathers. All the grandchildren of Yurovsky, by a fateful coincidence, died (one burned in a fire, the other was poisoned by mushrooms, the third hanged himself, another fell from the roof of the barn), and the girls died in infancy as such. The grandson of Tolya, adored by his grandfather, died right behind the wheel of a car.
Misfortune overtook Rimma. She, a prominent Komsomol leader, was arrested in 1935 and sent to the Karaganda camp for political prisoners. She served there until 1946. She died in 1980.
Son Alexander was Rear Admiral of the Navy. He was repressed in 1952, but was soon released when Stalin died . He died in 1986.
The youngest son was a political officer in the Navy, lieutenant colonel. He died in 1977.
Where is Yakov Yurovsky buried?
It is in vain to look for the burial place of the odious “hero of the revolution” on the popular metropolitan graveyards - Vagankovsky, Novodevichy ... For a long time it was not known where the grave of Yakov Yurovsky was located. As it turned out, his body was cremated and carefully hidden the urn with ashes from prying eyes in a special cemetery area - in a special columbarium on the New Donskoy cemetery in the historic district of Moscow.
There is evidence that this isolated mausoleum-columbarium was organized due to the assertiveness of Paul Dauge, a prominent party member and the first creator of ORRIK. Equipped a place of "VIP-burial" in the former church building. In Stalin’s dashing times, urns were placed here with the ashes of distinguished individuals who managed by some miracle to escape complete repression and died their own death.
Many cells are now “nameless”, because the glass tightly walled into the wall was fogged up from the inside and covered with a cloudy coating, which does not allow to see anything.
In the depths of the structure in the niche are two urns draped with red-black mourning ribbons so that no inscriptions are visible. This is the ashes of Yurovsky and his wife. Around the bins - several artificial flowers with faded fabric - neglect is visible in everything, it is noticeable that the burial has not been updated for a long time.
They say that fire erases all traces. But for the regicide, whose remains were in special columbaria, this law did not work: his trace did not disappear. At one time, Yurovsky did everything to hide forever the corpses of the imperial family, but his own grave ultimately turned out to be carefully hidden from people. The former commissar hero is now forever reincarnated as an outcast.