The measured life of Russia turned upside down in 1825, on December 14. On this day there was a Decembrist uprising. It was brutally suppressed, 579 participants were involved in the investigation. Five were sentenced to death, 120 people were sent to hard labor in Siberia. After the trial, all those sentenced were declared political criminals and officially dead.
“Political death” then meant the legal loss of absolutely all the rights of a citizen of a country. The wives of the Decembrists had to further decide their fate. They could file for divorce or save the marriage. Also, women were given the opportunity to go to men for hard labor. Two filed for divorce.
The names of eleven women — companions of the first Russian Decembrist revolutionaries — who followed their men to hard labor in Siberia, are known today. They did not belong in secret societies, did not take part in the uprising, but committed a heroic deed.
The deed of the wives of the Decembrists not only reflected their love and devotion to husbands. The progressive public at that time appreciated their action, giving it broad social and political significance. Voluntarily following the "state criminals", the wives of the Decembrists, like their husbands, spoke out against serfdom and autocracy, not afraid to lose their benefits and privileges.
It should be noted that Nicholas 1 created all kinds of obstacles for the departure of the wives of the Decembrists. One of the most severe conditions was the abandonment of children in European Russia.
The first to go to her husband was Ekaterina Trubetskaya. For six months in Irkutsk, she was detained by Zeidler (the local governor), who carried out a secret imperial order and did everything possible to make her return. Trubetskoy had to sign several obligations that deprived her of simple human rights. Zeidler said the princess’s trip to her husband can take place only at the stage, next to the hard labor. However, Ekaterina Trubetskaya was adamant. In the end, she went to her husband.
At the beginning of 1827, Alexandra Muravyova and Maria Volkonskaya came to Siberia, to the Nerchinsk mines, after Trubetskoy . From that moment, the first arriving wives of the Decembrists began their social activities. By the end of the year, the remaining women arrived at the mines: Alexandra Entaltseva, Anna Rosen, Alexandra Davydova, Natalya Fonvizina, Elizaveta Naryshkina, Camilla Ivasheva, Praskovya Annenkova, Maria Yushnevskaya.
Convicted "state criminals" were forbidden to write letters. The wives of the Decembrists established a connection between prisoners and relatives. Printed publications, including foreign ones, came to the name of women.
Women who came to Siberia lived simply. They had to cook their own food, wash, heat the stove. It was in these conditions that the young aristocrats were able to understand the full value of life.
Neglecting the danger, the wife of Nikita Muravyov, Alexander, brought and handed over Pushkin’s works dedicated to Pushchin (“My First Friend”, “To Siberia”). If during a search she found poetry, she would face a prison.
Alexandra Muravyova did not live long in Siberia. In winter, running to the apartment for children from her husband’s cell, she caught a cold and died soon.
Two more wives (Trubetskoy and Ivasheva) did not die at the settlement. Three women are widowed; they received permission to return after a general pardon of 1856. Two wives went to the Caucasus with their husbands (Naryshkina and Rosen). Three women with those released - returned after an amnesty to the European part of the country (Annenkova, Volkonskaya, Fonvizina).
The Decembrists and their wives returned after thirty years of exile, politically conscious. They carried their hatred of serfdom and autocracy through all these years.