EntranceYoung cadets in the White Army. Education system built on the best traditions
2013 marks the 170th anniversary of the Orlov Bakhtin Cadet Corps, founded in 1843 by the highest order of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas I.
In December 1841, the Tsar, having accepted a gift from retired Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Pavlovich Bakhtin for the establishment of a corps in Orel - 1 million 100 thousand rubles and a large estate, deigned to call the corps “Orlovsky Bakhtin”. About the history and traditions of the corps in last years much has become known thanks to the asceticism of the late Oleg Vladimirovich Levitsky and his daughter Natalya Olegovna Petrovanova-Levitskaya, whose father and grandfather Vladimir Vladimirovich Levitsky was a teacher at OBKK. About some of his pets after October 1917. - graduates of the corps different years- This article.
About the heroesGMost fellow citizens know the civil war from the films “Red Little Devils”, “White Sun of the Desert”, periodically shown by electronic media on TV, or at best from the films “ Quiet Don", "White Guard" or "Days of the Turbins", where cadets and cadets are portrayed as neurotic, hysterical or, conversely, infantile personalities. The indispensable attributes of officers are cards, roulette, drunken stupor. In addition to the state order issued by the ideologists, the film directors probably took images from the portraits of the political workers supervising them, who led the country and the army to disintegration, where the moral level of officers for the most part differs little from the level of soldiers, and “hazing” no longer occurs only in the troops, but also in some Suvorov and Nakhimov schools, where admission is guaranteed for $.e.
About real heroesBof the entire civil war movement - very little is known to the natives of the Oryol province who lived or were associated with it, one might say, nothing or almost nothing. Museum exhibitions still tell stories about the Red commanders - ascetic commissars and wise security officers who established Soviet power in the Oryol region. The heroes of the White Guard are given quite a bit of space in the exhibitions, and then only mostly to portraits of the generals: Denikin, Kornilov, Alekseev, Mai-Maevsky, Kolchak, Wrangel and Yudenich.
One of the pages in the history of the White movement is the participation in it of cadets of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps, mention of which can be found in the magazines “Cadet Roll Call”, “Sentry”, “Military Story” and other emigrant publications.
As Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov writes in the book “The Tragedy of the Russian Officers”:
“The best element were the officers from among the former students of the cadet corps, who served in the white armies almost without exception, which is fully confirmed by the available data.”
“Bolshevism and the revolution led to the destruction of all military schools and 23 cadet corps out of 31 existing before March 1917 in Russia in the period 1917-1918. The death of most of them was terrible, and impartial history will never record the bloody events that accompanied this death. Complete beating of personnel and cadets, which can be equated to the beating of infants at the dawn of the New Testament" (A. Markov. "Cadets and Junkers in the White Movement").
Let us give some names and surnames of Bakhtin's graduates of the cadet corps - officers, generals and cadets.
The banner of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps was secretly taken from the Church of the Archangel Michael by the officer-educator V.D. Trofimov together with two cadets and hidden in a safe place. The further fate of the banner is still unknown.
The banner of the Sumy Cadet Corps was saved and carried on his chest from Kyiv besieged by the Petliurites to Odessa by a native of the city of Orel, cadet Dmitry Potemkin, the son of a teacher of the Oryol and Sumy Cadet Corps A.D. Potemkin. As part of the Markov Regiment, 16-year-old Dmitry Potemkin took part in the battles near Orel in 1919. He graduated from the Crimean Corps in Yugoslavia, the University of Strasbourg. He worked as a worker and mining engineer in France, Germany, Brazil, and the USA, where he died in 1978.
Immediately after October 1917, many Oryol cadets rushed south and joined the detachments of the newly created Volunteer Army. 5th class cadet Prince Nakashidze, instead of going to his mother in Georgia, made his way to the Don. He fought in the cavalry reconnaissance detachment of Colonel Gershelman's division, who later sent him, in order to protect him from death, to General Alekseev's guard, consisting of cadets and cadets (the general called them his boys). For participation in the 1st Kuban Ice Campaign, Vasily Nakashidze, nicknamed Bicho by his friends, received the title of cornet. INRRussian army after the evacuation from Crimea on the ship "Lazarev" in 1920. - staff captain. Died March 9, 1965 in New York.
From A. Markov’s book “Cadets and Junkers in the White Movement”:
“The first volunteer detachments that began to fight the Reds near Rostov and Taganrog were overwhelmingly made up of cadets and cadets, just like the detachments of Chernetsov, Semiletov and other founders of the fight against the Reds. The first coffins, invariably escorted to Novocherkassk by the sad Ataman Kaledin, contained the bodies of killed cadets and cadets. At their funeral, General Alekseev, standing at the open grave, said:
- I see a monument that Russia will erect for these children, and this monument should depict an eagle’s nest and the eaglets killed in it...
In November 1917, in the city of Novocherkassk, a cadet battalion was formed, consisting of two companies: the first - cadet, under the command of Captain Skosyrsky, and the second - cadet, under the command of Staff Captain Mizernitsky. On November 27, he received an order to board a train and with fifty Don Cossack Military School was sent to Nakhichevan. Having unloaded under enemy fire, the battalion quickly formed up, as if in a training exercise, and, walking at full speed, rushed to attack the Reds. Having knocked them out of the Balabanovskaya grove, he entrenched himself in it and continued the shooting battle with the support of two of our guns. In this battle, almost the entire platoon of Captain Donskov, consisting of cadets from the Oryol and Odessa corps, was killed. The corpses found after the battle were mutilated and stabbed with bayonets. Thus, the Russian soil was stained with the blood of Russian child cadets in the first battle, which laid the foundation for the Volunteer Army and the White Struggle during the capture of Rostov-on-Don.”
OBKK cadet Alexey Ivanovich Komarevsky fought in the Volunteer Army and on the armored train “General Drozdovsky” in the Russian Army before being evacuated from Crimea. Gallipolitan. In 1926, as part of a guards detachment in Bulgaria, second lieutenant. In exile - in Belgium. He died in 1982 in Brussels.
Among the graduates of the OBKK there are many generals who played an important role in the White movement.
Major General Cherepov Alexander Nikolaevich (1877-1964). One of the founders of the Volunteer Army. Knight of St. George. Commander of the 1st volunteer detachment he formed in Rostov, which participated in the 1st Kuban Ice Campaign. In exile in Yugoslavia and France, he was the chairman of the Union of Pioneers and the Union of Disabled People. Died in France.
General of Infantry Shcherbachev Dmitry Grigorievich (1857-1932). Commander of the troops of the Romanian Front in the 1st World War. Knight of St. George. INGDuring the civil war, he was a representative of the white armies under the allied governments, head of the supply department for the white armies in Paris. He died in 1932 in Nice (France).
Major General Mikhail Fedorovich Danilov (1879-1943), commander of Her Majesty's Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment until 1917. In the Russian Army - commander of the 1st brigade of the cavalry division. In exile in France - chairman of the association of the Life Guards of Her Majesty's Cuirassier Regiment in Paris. He died in 1943 in Hungary.
Major General Subbotin Vladimir Fedorovich (1874 -?). During the First World War, he was the chief of engineers of the Romanian Front. Commandant and commander of the Sevastopol garrison in 1920.
Major General Baron von Nolken Alexander Ludwigovich (1879 –1957) in the First World War General Quartermaster. In the Volunteer Army since 1918. At the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR. In exile in Yugoslavia and France - chairman of the guards association.
Major General of the General Staff Mikhail Nikolaevich Vakhrushev (1865-1934) - participant in the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars. In the AFSR - Chief of Staff of the Kyiv Group of Forces. In exile - in the Kingdom of SHS (Yugoslavia) in Sarajevo. Served in the state commission. Honorary Chairman of the Sarajevo Society of Officers. He was buried in the New Cemetery in Belgrade.
Lieutenant General t Lekhovich Vladimir Andreevich (1860-1941). During the First World War, Head of the Main Artillery Directorate. In the AFSR - in the Army Artillery Supply Directorate. In exile in Belgrade. Chairman of the Artillery Society. Since 1924 in the USA. He was the head of the All-Guards Association and an Honorary member of the board of the Union of Russian Military Disabled Persons. Died in New York.
Lieutenant General of the General Staff Pokatov (Tseil) Sergei Vladimirovich (1868-1934). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. By 1917, commander of the XXXV Army Corps. In 1918 he took part in the uprising against the Bolsheviks in Ashgabat. Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Trans-Caspian Region. In exile he served in the Czechoslovak Army. Chairman of the Rescue Fund in Bratislava. He died there.
Lieutenant General Polzikov Mikhail Nikolaevich (1876-1938). Participant in the First World War. Knight of St. George. In the AFSR and the Russian Army, commander of the Drozdovskaya artillery brigade. In exile - in Bulgaria and Luxembourg. Died in Vasserbilig.
Major General of the General Staff Dmitry Ivanovich Andrievsky (1875-1951). In the First World War he fought on the Caucasian front. Commander of the 1st Kuban Plastun Brigade. Knight of St. George. Representative of the AFSR in Transcaucasia. In exile - in Persia and France. Died near Paris. He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois.
Major General Alexey Pavlovich Budberg (1869-1945). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. Commander of the XIV Army Corps. Awarded the Arms of St. George. Minister of War in the government of A.IN. Kolchak. In exile - in Japan, China, USA. Chairman of the Society of Russian Veterans of the Great War. Died in San Francisco.
General of Infantry Palitsyn Fedor Fedorovich (1851-1923). In the First World War, Chief of Staff of the Guards Corps. Chief of the General Staff. Member of the State Council. In exile - in Germany. Died in Berlin.
Major General Skobeltsyn Vladimir Stepanovich (1872-1944). In the First World War, chief of staff of the XVII, then XI Army Corps. Participant of the Brusilov breakthrough. In the white troops of the Northern Front. Commander of the Murmansk region troops. In exile - in Finland and France. Died near the city of Pau (France).
Lieutenant General t Gavrilov Alexander (Alexey) Nilovich (1855 –1926). During the First World War, he was the head of the Minsk local brigade. In exile - in Poland. Died in Vilna.
Lieutenant General Teplov Alexander Nikolaevich (1877-1964). Participant in the First World War. Commander of the Life Guards Finnish Regiment, 2nd Guards Infantry Division. Commander of the Petrograd Military District. In the Russian Army he commanded the 34th Infantry Division. In exile - in France. Died in Paris.
Major General Grevs Alexander Petrovich (1876-1936). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. Commander of the Life Guards Horse Grenadier Regiment. In the AFSR he commanded the Svodno-Gorsk cavalry division. In exile - in Serbia, France, member of the board of the association of the Nikolaev Cavalry School. Died near Paris.
Cavalry General Vasily Ivanovich Pokotilo (1856 - after 1919). Military governor of Fergana, Semirechensk, Ural regions. Assistant to the Turkestan Governor General and commander of the Turkestan Military District. During the First World War, he led the formation of Cossack units on the Don for the active army. He was a marching ataman and ataman of the Don Army. Then he was appointed chief supply officer for the armies of the Northern Front. Member of the Military Council. In 1919, he was a member of the Cassation Presence at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR.
Their eyes were like stars -
Ordinary Russian cadets;
Nobody described them here
And he didn’t sing it in the poet’s verses.
Those children were our stronghold.
And Rus' will bow to their grave;
They're all there
Died in snowdrifts...
Together with his father, the nephew of the officer-educator, El V., went to the Volunteer Army.IN. Levitsky, a graduate of the OBKK Gogolev Boris Lvovich is the cousin of Oleg Vladimirovich Levitsky and the uncle of Natalya Olegovna Petrovanova-Levitskaya, who continues the work of her father and grandfather in the popularization and study of the cadet movement. B.L. Gogolev fought in the Armed Forces of southern Russia in the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment. By 1925, he retired in Bulgaria with the rank of second lieutenant.
Many of the former cadets passed on the knowledge and warmth received within the walls of the OBKK from their teachers to the children of emigrants, instilling a love for the Motherland and the traditions of the Russian Army.
Artillery Colonel Vissarion Andreevich Boguslavsky led recruitment into the Volunteer Army in 1919 in Germany under the Inter-Union Company for Prisoners. In exile in France. In 1937, he became the head of the “Young Volunteer” organization (until 1932, “Young Scout”). Died in 1964 in Gagny (France).
Colonel Brendel Viktor Alexandrovich. In the 1st World Chief of Staff of the 2nd Guards Horse Grenadier Division. In 1918 in the Hetman's army. Military agent in Romania. In 1919, in the White troopsINeastern front. He taught in cadet corps abroad in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Died in 1969 in San Francisco.
Midshipman of individual midshipman classes Ivanov Emelyan Egorovich (1897R.), a native of the city of Bolkhov, Oryol province, was sailing on the cruiser "Eagle" in 1917-1918. Since 1919 - in the naval company of the Siberian Flotilla, second lieutenant. Since 1923, in exile in China, teacher at the Khabarovsk Cadet Corps in Shanghai. From 1927 he served in the French municipal police. Died during the arrest of criminals on June 30, 1940 in Shanghai.
In issue 95, January 1969, in the magazine “Military True”, published in Paris, there is an article by former cadet A. Levitsky, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps, telling about the history of the OBKK and about his years of study here. The article begins with the heartfelt lines of a poem by his OBKK classmate Mesnyaev:
Friends, tell me, was it
Or is this just a reflection of a dream?
Oryol cadet uniform
And Bakhtin's glorious corpus.
Let's answer: yes! Everything was, it was:
And the King and the banners of glory,
And our heart has not forgotten
Bakhtin's Oryol Corps.
The cadet family is united,
We are equal in soul and thought,
And the appearance of Prince Constantine
A star shines for us from the darkness.
These lines belong to Oryol cadet Grigory Valerianovich Myasnyaev (1892-196?), writer and public figure of the Russian emigration. After graduating from the corps, due to heart disease, he was unable to enter the military school and graduated from the Faculty of Law Kyiv University. But he nevertheless became an officer during the Great War. For several years he participated in battles on the fronts of the First World War, and then the Civil War in the ranks of volunteers. Due to typhus and pneumonia, he remained in Rostov-on-Don after the retreat of the Whites. He described his fate before going abroad in the 1940s in the story “Old Time.”
“An officer who gave his youth, his health, his blood for the Russia of his fathers, will now have to grovel to save his life. The entire naked, cynical style of the Soviet system, its dullness and squalor, reflected in this ugly, non-Russian language of their newspapers, appeals, decrees, repulsive images of leaders, dirt, deliberate contempt for everything that had hitherto decorated life, - all this was organically alien to him, everything breathed with enmity and hatred towards everything that was dear and close to him.”
In emigration to Bavaria in Germany and later in America G.IN. Myasnyaev was able to realize his literary gift. He also wrote the stories “Fields of an Unknown Land”, “In the Footsteps of the Past”, essays about General M.D. Skobelev, poet N.WITH. Gumilyov and other works. Abroad, he became close to the famous public figure and historian S.P. Melgunov, in New York he was elected chairman of the society named after A.S. Pushkin. Died in the 1960s in the USA.
As we see, the fate of Oryol cadets from the lower ranks to generals is scattered all over the world. But, despite the distances and distance from each other, they retained their cadet brotherhood and love for the place from which they came into adulthood. Often the memories of former cadets were published decades later by colleagues, friends, and relatives.
An article by Lieutenant General E. was published on the pages of the magazine “Military True” for 1969.A. Milodanovich “Memories of the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps”, telling about the years of study in the corps with detailed description the city of Orel at that time. The publication was carried out by his son, a former cadet, employee of the magazine "Military True", professor, leaderINhigher officer courses, Colonel Vsevolod Evgenievich Milodanovich, who, like his father, served as an artilleryman in the 1st World War. During the Civil War he fought in the Hetman Army in 1918, and from 1919 in the Armed Forces of southern Russia. In exile he served in the Czechoslovak Army. After 1945 in Germany, Yugoslavia. Died in 1977 in Australia.
Another employee of the magazine “Military Story” was Oryol cadet Georgy Aleksandrovich Kutorga, a participant in the Civil War. In exile, he graduated from the Crimean Cadet Corps and the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the city of Belaya Tserkov in the Kingdom of SHS (Yugoslavia). He was released with the rank of cornet into the 17th Chernigov Hussar Regiment of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, where for many years he was the secretary of the regimental association, kept the chronicle of the regiment in exile, and was also the secretary of the general cadet association. G. diedA. Kutorg on October 12, 1975 in San Francisco (USA). The funeral was attended by more than 100 veterans from the cadet society and graduates of the Nikolaev Cavalry School, led by Major General V.N. Won. The funeral service was served by a classmate in the Crimean Cadet Corps, Archbishop Anthony, and several other priests.
The permanent editor of the Sentinel magazine, in which many cadets were published, was a native of the village of Gostinoye, Mtsensk district, Oryol province, staff captain Vasily Vasilyevich Orekhov. Veteran of the First World War, the Civil War and the Spanish War on the side of General Franco. A prominent social and political figure of the Russian military emigration, who died in Brussels (Belgium) in 1990.
A special page in the history of the Civil War is associated with the cruise on the cruiser "Oryol", which bore the name of the city of Oryol, in 1917-1920. midshipman of the Vladivostok Naval School, among whom were graduates of the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps Vyacheslav Uzunov, Boris Afrosimov, Ivan Malygin, Onisim Liming, Sergei Aksakov, Nikolai Nedbal and others, maintaining contact with their 1920 graduation through publications and bulletins of the Naval School in the 20-70s . XX century in Bizerte (Tunisia), Belgrade (Yugoslavia), Brno (Czechoslovakia), New York, Lakewood (USA). (Details about this in the collections “For Faith and Loyalty” Nos. 34 and 45 of the magazine “History of the Russian Province”).
This is what the writer in exile, a former cadet, a native of the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province, a regular contributor to the magazine “Cadet Roll Call”, who was engaged in literary activities in San Francisco in the last years of his life, Anatoly Lvovich Markov, will write in exile:
“The cadets of all Russian corps, who fought alongside their older cadet brothers on the Orenburg front, with General Miller in the North, with General Yudenich near Luga and Petrograd, with Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, with General Diterichs on the Far East, among Cossack atamans in the Urals, Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Crimea and the Caucasus. All these cadets and cadets had one impulse, one dream - to sacrifice themselves for the Motherland. This high rise in spirit led to victory. Only they explained the entire success of the volunteers against a numerous enemy. This was also reflected in the songs of the volunteers, the most typical of which is their song during the Ice March in Kuban:
…In the evening, closed in formation,
We sing our quiet song
About how they went to the distant steppes
We, the children of a crazy, unhappy land,
And in the feat we saw one goal -
Save your native country from shame.
The blizzards and the cold of the night scared us.
It was not for nothing that we were given the Ice Campaign...
“The impulse in its sublimity, its selflessness, its self-sacrifice is so exceptional, - wrote one of our glorious cadet writers, - that it is difficult to find someone like him in history. This feat is all the more significant because it was completely disinterested, little appreciated by people and deprived of the laurel wreath of victory...”
One thoughtful Englishman, who was in the south of Russia duringGCivil War, said that “in the history of the world he does not know anything more remarkable than the child volunteers of the White movement. To all the fathers and mothers who gave their children for the Motherland, he must say that their children brought a sacred spirit to the battlefield and, in the purity of their youth, lay down for Russia. And if people did not appreciate their sacrifices and did not yet erect a worthy monument to them, then God saw their sacrifice and accepted their souls into His heavenly abode...”
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, anticipating the bright role that in the future would fall to the lot of his beloved cadets, long before the revolution, dedicated prophetic lines to them:
Even though you are a boy, you are aware in your heart
Kinship with a great military family,
He was proud to belong to her soul;
You are not alone - you are a flock of eagles.
The day will come, and, spreading its wings,
Happy to sacrifice themselves,
You will rush bravely into mortal combat, -
Death for the honor of one’s native land is enviable!..”
Konstantin Grammatchikov
“History of the Russian Province” No. 51
Modern pedagogy is inventing more and more new ways of raising a child and shaping his personality. We have already reached the point where parents are not advised to formulate anything - they say that when the child grows up, he will choose for himself, and a “free society” (together with juvenile justice) will help him with this. History, the legacy of the past, centuries-old traditions of family and state education - all this has long been out of favor. Such an indifferent and servile approach to raising a child, of course, makes him a faceless egoist. Therefore, rejecting what is harmful, we decided to turn to the unique experience of the Orthodox education of boys and young men in the cadet corps of the times of the Russian Empire.
First Cadet Corps, prototype modern system cadet corps, was created by Decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna in 1732 in St. Petersburg. Two decades earlier, its predecessor arose - the Navigation school of Peter I, which marked the beginning of the search for a better system of male upbringing and education in the Russian Empire. A century later, there were already thirty cadet corps - from Pskov and Kyiv to Omsk and Tashkent.
Over the years of development, the cadet corps has undergone a lot of metamorphoses, gone through many reforms (including the transfer to civilian tracks of “military gymnasiums” under the Minister of War Dmitry Milyutin) and showed the whole world an example of educating real soldiers of Christ - people of high morality, honest and valiant.
“Russian cadet corps supplied the Russian state with cadres of youth, well prepared religiously, morally, intellectually and physically, for sacrificial service to the Motherland. Cadet corps were military dormitories with military discipline, in which there was a military spirit. At the same time, the cadet corps provided a good general secondary seven-year education (corresponds to the program of modern secondary education from the 4th to the 10th or 11th grades - R.K.), so that their students could then serve the state and the people in any field . Religion in general and Orthodoxy in particular occupied an extremely important place in this pedagogical system. The law of God came first.
In accordance with Suvorov’s will, our entire national-patriotic education was ultimately based on Christian commandments, as preached by the Orthodox Church, on love for the Fatherland, on respect for parents and elders, on high morality and on the highest concept of honor. It’s impossible to come up with anything better, and therefore there’s no need to come up with anything else.”
This definition of the Russian Cadet Corps was drawn up in 1995 by a special Commission of the emigrant Association of Cadet of Russian Cadet Corps in Argentina. It was headed by Count Alexander Konovnitsyn, a cadet of the Corps of Pages, Alexey Elsner, a cadet of the Don Cadet Corps, and the chairman of the Association, Igor Andrushkevich.
The purpose of educating cadets in the Russian Empire was not education as such (that is, transferring certain knowledge and skills to the student), but the formation of a highly moral personality of an Orthodox Christian. That is why, having a large store of knowledge (in foreign languages, natural sciences, painting, music, etc.), graduates of the cadet corps did not at all resemble representatives of the modern “golden youth”. After all, the ideals of their youthful ideas were not expensive estates, lackeys and traveling carriages, but voluntary sacrifice of oneself for the sake of others, following the example of the saints of the Orthodox Church and Christ the Savior himself.
Unlike the “Suvorov” military schools with a two-year and three-year training program, cadet education always began with the family, from birth to ten years of age, continued in the corps - until the age of seventeen, and then culminated in a military school (in general - almost 10 years of continuous state military education). The core of the cadet’s entire life, from birth to old age, was sacrificial service. The system of cadet education in the Russian Empire was built on this covenant - the sacrifice of a lifetime. The cadet of Imperial Russia can be characterized by words from the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”: “...he was a young man, partly already of our last time, that is, honest by nature, demanding the truth, seeking it and believing in it, and having believed, demanding immediate participation in it with all the strength of his soul, demanding a quick feat, with an indispensable desire to at least sacrifice everything for this feat, even life.”
Modern parents seeking to develop personality should pay attention to the fact that even in early childhood, future cadets were given a role model - as in the form of fatherly advice (“Death for the Fatherland is a cherished destiny,” my father told me.”, - is sung in one cadet song), and in the form of a living example (the fathers of the cadets were, as a rule, officers or Knights of St. George from soldiers who especially distinguished themselves in military service). Role models were not only the parents of future cadets, who prepared their children for service from childhood, but also the heroes of history. The absolute role models for the masses of boys were the emperors of Russia and outstanding commanders of the present and past.
Already directly in the cadet corps, education was based not on a meager formula invented by an official or teacher, but on the living example of his father-commander. In the cadet corps, special attention was paid to the selection of teachers and officers. Only the best officers, who had already proven themselves in service, and only accomplished, dedicated teachers with good experience were included in the corps. There could not and never have been any “drunken generals” (as shown in the popular parody “The Barber of Siberia”) or crazy teachers (as is chewed up year after year in modern American “youth comedies”). Pedagogical commissions, boards of trustees represented by the grand dukes, the sovereigns themselves, as well as representatives of the public, reliably guaranteed the proper selection of educators.
Particular attention was paid to teachers of the law - teachers of the law of God and spiritual fathers of students. The best priests ended up in the cadet corps. They not only knew dogmatic theology and the history of the Church, but they knew how to find a way to the soul of their students. The best of the cadets carried out obedience in the corps church (sextons, cadet choir, readers), all cadets regularly confessed, fasted and received communion, primarily on the days of the great and twelfth holidays.
And so, among the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia there were five metropolitans - graduates of cadet corps. One of them is St. John of Shanghai, a graduate of the Poltava Cadet Corps.
It is also important that each cadet corps had its own Highest Chief - a person whose image and example he was guided by. Unlike modern schools and colleges, averaged and ordered by number (what does “gymnasium No. 513” or “physics and mathematics school No. 322” tell the reader?), the buildings bore the names of their bosses.
“Which building?”- asks the officer-educator of a young cadet in Alexander Kuprin’s novel “Junker”. "Empress Anna Ioannovna...", comes the clear answer. The ideas about life and answers of the cadet corps of the Vladimir Kiev Cadet Corps, the Odessa Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Suvorovsky (one in the whole country!), Nikolaevsky (Emperor Nicholas I in St. Petersburg), the Tashkent Heir Tsarevich Alexy, and many others.
Each cadet corps had its own motto, which was displayed on the facade of the educational building, in the ballroom or in the company room. “Soul to God, heart to lady, honor to no one”, said the Tiflis cadets. “God is not in power, but in truth”, - the Kiev cadets answered them. “The cadets have different shoulder straps, but the cadets have the same soul.” , they all said together. And the community of cadet souls was expressed in a mass of traditions that were imperceptible to an outside observer, forever linking the cadet with the history of his corps. It is not for nothing that marble slabs hung on the walls of cadet buildings and schools, on which, along with the names best cadets the names of graduates who died on the battlefields were engraved. It was not without reason that even in emigration, due to a strong fraternal tradition, when the cadet corps themselves no longer existed, the names of deceased cadets continued to be recorded in special synodics - tradition demanded that the living could remember the deceased.
The power of cadet training - the cadet education system - was so great that even after the actual collapse of the state that created the cadet corps, they survived and existed in exile for another half a century (!), until 1964. The most famous and renowned cadet corps was the First Russian Cadet Corps of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in Yugoslavia. Let's dwell a little on his history.
With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, all cadet corps that found themselves in the territory under their control were closed and destroyed. Many of the corps offered armed resistance to their enslavers, showing heroism and ingenuity. The banners of the cadet corps were protected with great difficulty and danger to the lives of the cadets and were removed by all possible means. Most of the senior cadets joined the ranks of the White Army, partisan detachments and formations; the junior cadets also experienced all the vicissitudes of the civil war.
In the south and east of the country, legitimate power was restored the fastest. It was here that cadets from all the cities where the cadet corps were located began to break through in groups and alone. Thus, first in Novocherkassk, and then in Kyiv and Odessa, the bastions of cadetism began to be revived. The Crimean Cadet Corps became special - in its significance and in its composition - where young heroes of the White Front, many of whom were under fifteen, were transferred from the combat units of the White Army to complete their studies. In 1920, with the approach of the Bolsheviks, they were taken in an organized manner to Yugoslavia (then the State of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes). From the cadets of the Kyiv, Odessa and Polotsk cadet corps, the backbone of the future “princes of Constantinovich” was formed, as best evidenced by the song written by the cadets themselves in exile:
By the sovereign will of Nicholas,
By the omnipotent will of the King,
Fulfilling His commandments,
Two monasteries arose.
Alone silently and sullenly
In ancient Kyiv stood,
Another among the world's noise
In Odessa he raised the walls.
But it was not the monks who lived
Within the walls of those two monasteries,
They were called Corps
All over Rus' among people.
But the years of happiness have passed,
A terrible, troubled year has come,
And the red banner of anarchy
Raised the people into madness.
And both corps are persecuted
By common fire,
The limit has left my dear
And there are old nests on it.
And after much testing
Abroad of our native land
They are the limit of their wanderings
Found in sad Serbia.
The Russian Corps was founded there
The cadet united in mass,
He is tightly bound by faith alone,
Warmed by tradition alone.
Hoary covenants, Holy Rus',
We couldn't forget here.
Braiding a wreath of traditions,
We will wear them in the shower.
We believe in the power of Providence -
A happy dawn will rise,
When in the heat of holy zeal
Let's die for Rus' and for the Tsar!
Thanks to the support of the Serbian government (King Alexander I Karageorgievich was a graduate of the Corps of Pages and loved Russia), it was possible to completely recreate the entire way of life and way of cadet life abroad. Initially, three cadet corps were created in Yugoslavia (Crimean Cadet Corps, Don Cadet Corps, and the First Russian Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Cadet Corps). Teaching there was based on the same principles as in the Russian Empire.
The First Russian Cadet Corps existed longer than the others. Until 1929, it was located in Sarajevo, and then in Bila Tserkva, on the border with Romania. For a long time, the director of the corps was an experienced teacher, the author of sixty-seven testaments, cadet, Lieutenant General Boris Adamovich. Let us quote his words spoken during the first celebration of the corps holiday: “When in Vladimir, where Alexander Nevsky was the Grand Duke, news of his death was received, Metropolitan Kirill said to the people: “The sun of the Russian land has set!” - the people responded with a cry: “We are perishing!” Don't repeat these words of despair! But with the words of Prince Alexander Nevsky, “God is not in power, but in truth!” and under his holy cover get ready for life, my small cadet squad, pray and strive for the sun of the Russian land to rise again. That’s why our holiday falls on the day of the holy blessed prince Alexander Nevsky!” This short excerpt from General Adamovich's speech clearly reflects the spirit and goals of educating cadets in exile.
It is also worth mentioning that many of the cadets were orphans who lost their parents during the years of turmoil. The cadet corps, with its covenants of brotherhood, faith and loyalty, became for them a new home, in which the chicks who had lost their ancestral nests grew up and fledged. Thanks to the enormous work of our teachers and the support of the Serbs, for more than twenty years it was possible to preserve and enhance the traditions of education in emigration, while in those years in the USSR even the mention of cadets was prohibited.
Unfortunately, the history of the First Russian Cadet Corps in Yugoslavia ended tragically. In 1941, Serbia was occupied by Nazi Germany. Against this background, a civil war between the Chetnik monarchists and the Titoite communists gradually began to unfold in the country, putting the entire Serbian people between a rock and a hard place. The Nazi occupation was soon replaced by the arrival of the Red Army. Most of the educators, teachers and some of the cadets did not have time to evacuate in September 1944 and remained in their homes. Their fates turned out to be very sad, and in some cases tragic. The Red Army entered Bila Tserkva on October 1, 1944. Soon after this, arrests and quick reprisals against representatives of the military emigration began. A huge number of teachers and officers were shot, many ended up in prisons and camps, and only years later they were able to be released. The fate of the rest - those who were evacuated in the early autumn of 1944 - turned out differently. The cadets who managed to escape abroad scattered around the world, but did not lose the strong bonds of their brotherhood. Their motto was “Scattered, but not dissolved,” and their common cause was the creation of a cadet museum in San Francisco and the long-term publication of the magazine “Cadet Roll Call” (www.kadetpereklichka.org).
Largely thanks to this, in the early 90s, the legacy of the cadet corps returned to their homeland. They became the basis for educating young people in cadet corps modern Russia and Ukraine. But this is the beginning of a completely different story, which, hopefully, you will learn from the next issues of the magazine.
Afterword.
The history of the Vladimir Kyiv Cadet Corps is a striking example of cadet education. Opened on January 1, 1852 by decree of Emperor Nicholas I. There were five hundred cadets in the Corps, consisting of one battalion (five companies, divided by age) and twenty-two teachers. The temple holiday - the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Duke Vladimir - was celebrated on July 15 (old style), and the corps holiday - on December 10. The cadets wore white shoulder straps with the yellow letters “V.K.”
During the Civil War in 1919, the Corps was evacuated to Odessa, and from there, a year later, to Serbia, together with the Odessa Cadet Corps, where it formed the basis of the First Russian Cadet Corps. The Vladimir Kiev Cadet Corps was revived in Kyiv in 2003.
Among the graduates of the corps were such famous generals as Nikolai Dukhonin (sergeant major, graduated in 1885, commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, torn to pieces by the Bolsheviks at Headquarters in 1917), generals of the Volunteer Army M. G. Drozdovsky, A. P. Bogaevsky and V. V. Manstein.
Many of our citizens have a rather superficial idea of cadet education. They say, “retired officers dressed the children in military uniforms and instilled in them a love for the army.” However, everything is much more complicated. Among the students of the cadet corps there have always been many outstanding people: statesmen, generals, representatives of science and art. And military uniform alone (and even love for the army) cannot raise such personalities out of boys.
The revival of cadet educational institutions began in Russia almost 20 years ago - in 1992. This happened most often due to the pure enthusiasm of individual citizens concerned about the fate of the younger generations; Often newborn buildings did not have the most necessary things. However, many public organizations did not stand aside and began to help cadet educational institutions.
One of such organizations was the Alexey Jordan Foundation for Assistance to Cadet Corps. Today he actively helps the development of the cadet upbringing and education system in our country, develops the necessary programs and projects, and regularly publishes the magazine “Russian Cadet Roll Call”. For several years now, the foundation has been successfully operating in fraternal Serbia; not so long ago, with the help of students from the cadet corps, he put in order the memorial Russian cemetery in the city of Belaya Tserkov.
Olga Barkovets, General Director of the Alexey Jordan Cadet Corps Assistance Fund, talks about the work of the foundation, cadet education, its prospects and advantages.
- Olga, first of all, about the activities of the fund. How is support for the cadet corps expressed?
It is difficult today to talk about work that began at the beginning of the 1990s, took shape in the mid-1990s and continues to this day. Then, in the 1990s, when ideals began to crumble in our society, when many children ended up on the street because their parents had no time to raise them, the idea was born among several generations of military school graduates to revive cadet corps. This coincided with the arrival in Russia of graduates of cadet corps that operated in the Russian diaspora in 1920 - 1940s. We call them senior cadets.
In the early 1990s, an amazing unity of “whites” and “reds” took place, because those who left in the 1920s shared the ideology of white officers, and their descendants (many were born in exile) came to their historical homeland and met here are people who graduated from the Soviet Suvorov and Nakhimov schools. This is one of the amazing phenomena of that time: people did not begin to sort out ideological differences and show any political ambitions. They united on the main thing: we need to think about how to save the country’s younger generation. The first buildings appeared in 1992 in Novosibirsk, in 1994 - in Novocherkassk and Moscow. It was an “initiative from below,” an initiative of enthusiasts who were passionate about the idea of reviving the cadet corps. I think that in new Russia there is not yet such a social phenomenon, such a successfully implemented “social order” as cadet institutions. Precisely the order of civil society.
It has long been known that nothing artificial, “stillborn” can be imposed on society. Real life will still reject it. Sometimes government officials come up with some innovation and begin to intensively “implement” it. As a rule, in vain. I remember they came up with a slogan: “Let’s take all the street children and send them to the cadet corps.” Nothing worked out because the idea was initially wrong and ill-conceived. But what was able to be revived by initiative “from below”, thanks to the efforts of citizens, - this is the real, lasting, necessary.
The revival of the cadet model in the country clearly demonstrates that the development of the system of educating children and adolescents must be taken care of daily and hourly. And not on the occasion of either major holidays, for example, the next anniversary of Victory Day, or dramatic events, for example, like on Manezhnaya Square. When suddenly they remembered again that the children, it turns out, need to be educated. And not only in the family, but also at school.
In our country today there are more than 150 cadet educational institutions in the education and science system alone. Imagine the dynamics: in 1992 the first cadet corps appeared, 18 years have passed - there are already more than 150 of them! This means that this is a living, vitally important matter! Let me remind you that in 1917 there were 31 cadet corps in Imperial Russia. Where the elite of the Russian Empire was raised: outstanding commanders, military men, teachers, artists, writers.
And now about our foundation. One of the senior cadets who came to Russia in the early 1990s was Alexey Borisovich Yordan, the father of the founder of our Cadet Corps Assistance Fund. He, like his classmates, graduated from the Russian Cadet Corps of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in Serbia. Alexey Borisovich was one of the most active figures who wanted to revive the cadet corps.
From intentions they quickly moved to action: together with their new Suvorov friends, senior cadets traveled around Russia, helped create cadet corps, and gave money to buy shoulder straps, uniforms, and boots. Once Alexey Borisovich came to one of the oldest cadet corps, the Voronezh Mikhailovsky Cadet Corps, and saw that students were walking around classes to study various subjects with their own chairs. He asked: “Why do children carry chairs around?” He was told that there were not enough chairs, and the building did not have money for new ones. Alexey Borisovich immediately found the money.
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Then Boris Alekseevich decided that it was necessary to work systematically: it was necessary to create a charitable foundation operating according to European standards, transparent in reporting, working not for immediate needs, but for solving the main task - creating an education system based on cadet educational institutions.
We started in 1999. We registered a private charitable foundation and since then we have been giving grants to cadet educational institutions for the implementation of various programs related to raising children; We are developing our own projects aimed at preserving traditions in cadet corps, so that our children do not grow up as consumers, but engage in charity and volunteering.
We support the system of spiritual and moral education of children. For this purpose, we have prepared the “Let’s Do Good Together” program. It is primarily aimed at developing mercy and compassion among students of cadet corps.
We help build or revive corps churches; I can proudly say that we revived one of the most beautiful corps churches in St. Petersburg, in the cadet rocket and artillery corps, together with the head of the corps, Colonel Yevgeny Ermolov. This year the temple turned 200 years old. And again cadets come there, lessons in Orthodox culture are held there, and the students have a confessor.
I can talk about the fund for a long time. We have a program related to the preservation of Russian relics in Serbia; We do design projects for museums of cadet corps. You can find out about this and much more on our website. We helped revive the cadet education system, and now we strive to make it perfect.
Your foundation has held many events in Serbia. Please tell us more about this. How is working in Serbia different from working in Russia?
It seems to me that there is not a single Russian person who, having arrived in Serbia, would not fall in love with it. In Serbia, you feel some kind of special connection with our history and culture, a spiritual connection.
It all started in 2006: we supported the initiative to rename the central square of the small Serbian city of Bila Tserkva into Russian Cadet Square. Imagine, for the first time in the history of Serbia, the memory of the presence of Russian cadet corps there will be immortalized! We prepared this event together with the Russian Embassy, with the Russian Cadet Society, with the Russian Cadet Brotherhood. The idea was supported by the mayor of Bila Tserkva. Not only honored guests, but also many residents of Bila Tserkva gathered for the opening ceremony of Russian Cadet Square.
And then a new idea arose.
When we got acquainted with the sights of the city, with places associated with the Russian diaspora, we were struck by the state of the Russian necropolis, where teachers and students of cadet corps, officers of the Russian army are buried. Abandoned graves, half-rusty crosses, weeds... And this discrepancy with the great event that happened two hours ago led us to the idea that we need to bring young cadets from Russia here to restore this necropolis together with them.
A year later, we returned to Belaya Tserkov along with 40 cadets and gymnasium students from the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Nizhny Novgorod Region. We saw what a huge resonance our arrival caused. Many residents did not even know that there had once been cadet corps in their city, and now it was as if they had opened a new page in the history of Bila Tserkva. They greeted us with surprised eyes, not believing that children from distant Siberia had come to clean up the Russian cemetery.It was a good lesson for our guys too. We saw how they immersed themselves in the history of the stay of Russian cadets in Serbia in the 20-40s of the last century, we saw how the faces of teenagers changed, their attitude towards the fact that they wore cadet shoulder straps. Perhaps it was then that they began to feel like part of a large cadet family.
We were amazed that the Serbs came to the necropolis, where boys and girls worked, and brought water and apples, because it was very hot in the summer. Then the mayor of the city told us: “We raise our children in a European way: they know about their rights, but sometimes they do not know their responsibilities. And your children know their responsibilities and only then remember their rights.”
The young cadets surprised both the Serbs and us. We realized that this project needs to be continued. A year later, we brought new students from the cadet corps to Bila Tserkva.
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We came to Bila Tserkva in our third year. They waited for us and accepted us, they simply loved us. And Russia was represented on Serbian soil not by some official delegations, but by ordinary funny guys who worked in the morning, then met with their peers, gave concerts for residents, where the famous “Katyusha” thundered to a storm of applause.
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- Was everything really so smooth in the work of the fund?
Of course, there were difficulties. But thanks to trials we only become stronger. First of all, the existing legislative framework does not allow us to work at the level of trust in charitable foundations that is necessary. This is a common problem for the charitable community and the state. We had to prove that we have pure intentions. And that sometimes a charitable foundation can do more effectively what the state could not do.
Of course, a personnel retraining system should be organized in the Ministry of Education, but, unfortunately, it has not worked out there yet. Frequent reforms have not consolidated a structure that would systematically deal with cadet institutions.
What are the advantages of cadet education over regular school education? Are students of the cadet corps somehow different from most young people?
Good question. Once during an interview, a correspondent from one of the Western news agencies She asked me rather harshly: “Why militarize education?” I explained and she said she wanted to go and see for herself. A few days later she called with a request: is it possible to place her son in the cadet corps?
I tell you this because it is better to see once than to hear a hundred times. Today's cadet educational institutions are distinguished by a harmonious education system. It is implemented from the day the child enters the cadet boarding school until graduation. It is important that boys (now, however, there are also girls) study in cadet schools (boarding schools) from the age of 10. At the age of 10, you can still shape a child’s worldview and invest some basic values in him. The main difference is education system, built on the best military-patriotic and spiritual-moral traditions.
- What is the best way to instill in young people a love for Orthodox culture and Russian culture in general?
In my opinion, in order to instill love for a subject, you need to know it deeply. If a child is taught, say, cultural history or military-industrial complex, then a lot depends on the teacher, on how he can interest the student. So that a child, suppose, not only hears that there is such a composer as Rachmaninov, but learns to listen and hear his music. Let’s say, take a cadet class to Ivanovka, in the Tambov region, so that Rachmaninov’s music can be played for the cadets on his own estate. Last year, together with the administration of the city of Uvarovo, we held a wonderful festival “Cadet Symphony” there, in which more than 300 cadets from Moscow, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Belaya Kalitva, Shakhta, Stary Oskol, Tambov and the Tambov region took part.
You can talk a lot about the artist Repin, but it’s better to come to Nizhny Novgorod once, see the Volga, hear about the unique Volga culture, which inspired many artists, poets, and writers. This year our foundation will continue the “Cadet Symphony” program on the basis of the Nizhny Novgorod Cadet Corps named after General V.F. Margelova.
When instilling culture and knowledge, it is important not to use double standards. How can a child grow as a person if at school he is told one thing, but in life he sees something else?
How to make sure that a child, upon leaving the corps, becomes a leader, including a spiritual leader, for his friends and loved ones? These are the questions that cadet education is trying to solve. As the mother of a boy who graduated from the cadet corps, I can say that the children growing up there are completely different; they have a strong core that helps them become worthy people.
Firstly, the cadet fraternity contributes to this. The boys, after leaving their alma mater, remain friends for life and help each other. Secondly, these children are motivated, they know what they need in life, and these goals are not mercantile. Every person should set himself high goal and achieve it. They are ready to serve in the army. Previously, 50 percent of graduates went to civilian universities, the rest to military ones. In total, 96-97 percent of graduates entered higher education institutions. It seems to me that this indicator indicates the high quality of cadet education.
- What are the prospects for cadet education?
I think the growth of cadet corps will continue. Now Cossack cadet corps are actively developing. The prospects are great, but we are alarmed by the number of buildings that have opened. It is high time to move from quantity to quality, because, having opened a cadet school or corps, it is important not just to dress children in military uniforms and force them to march in formation, but to create an education system that corresponds to the high ideals that have always been in the country’s cadet corps. I would say this: “Today we are for the purity of the genre.” If you called yourself a cadet corps, live up to that. If there is no serious education system, there will be no corps, no matter how beautiful the boys’ uniforms are.
Interviewed by Irina Obukhova
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Changes in the life of the cadet corps began at the end of February 1917, when the Provisional Government came to power in Russia. The new leadership of the War Ministry declared the need for a radical transformation of the entire system of officer training in accordance with “new”, “democratic” principles. By order of the War Ministry of March 13, 1917, a commission was established under the Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions, chaired by the head of the department, Z.A. Maksheev to develop regulations on military educational institutions. Representatives of the cadet corps and military schools of Petrograd were delegated to the commission. The Milyutin military gymnasiums were proposed as a model for the reformed cadet corps. At the same time, the return to cadet corps in 1882 was called a reactionary measure, “preferring limited German drilling and artificial militarization to the broad plans of great thinkers.” Former cadet corps became accessible to representatives of all classes. On July 7, 1917, the Minister of War approved the “Regulations on the educational part for gymnasiums of the military department.” According to this provision, all cadet corps were transformed into military gymnasiums with the elimination of the previous cadet paraphernalia. The military system and shoulder straps were abolished, ranks were eliminated, a five-point knowledge assessment system was introduced, and companies were converted into age groups. Civilian teachers were invited to fill the positions of educators. Pedagogical committees received the right to appoint educators and teachers and propose their candidates for the post of directors and class inspectors for consideration by the State University of Higher Education. Learning programs remained the same. |
A significant portion of the cadets greeted the innovations with extreme hostility. Brought up in the spirit of devotion to the monarchy and love of military affairs, they resolutely denied the changes that were taking place. The Cadets did not want to take the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government. They continued to wear shoulder straps, with a white scarf under the shoulder strap, which was supposed to signify loyalty to the monarchy. It was a spontaneous boyish protest. Sometimes gymnasium students came into conflict with those teachers who demonstrated loyalty to new government. The reform of the cadet corps begun by the Provisional Government was not completed.
The path of Russian cadet corps into emigration actually began on October 19, 1919, when the Petrovsky-Poltava cadet corps, due to the prevailing circumstances of the Civil War, left Poltava and moved to Vladikavkaz, where it was hospitably received by the Vladikavkaz cadet corps. In total, up to 900 cadets gathered in Vladikavkaz.
In the spring of 1920, a decision was made to evacuate the cadet corps from Vladikavkaz to Crimea. It was decided to carry out the evacuation through the ports of Georgia. The transition along the Georgian Military Road was mainly carried out on foot; there were very few carts, and they were mainly intended for provisions. The convoy covered 20-25 km per day. It should be taken into account that the cadets were 9-10 years old. The refugees covered themselves from bad weather with burkas, which were issued to all participants in the campaign. Burkas provided shelter from wind and rain.
Only on March 23, 1920, the corps arrived in Kutaisi. The Georgian authorities did not provide any assistance to the cadets. The corps were placed in some kind of camp, behind wire, and ate the food that they managed to take with them. On June 9, 1920, the cadet corps was transported to Crimea on the steamship Kizil Arvat. Upon arrival in Crimea, it was possible to quickly merge the corps and single cadets of other corps into one. The corps was located in Oreanda (Yalta). In early July, the corps, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in the South of Russia, Lieutenant General Baron P.N. Wrangel headed former director 1st Moscow Empress Catherine II Cadet Corps, Lieutenant General Vladimir Valeryanovich Rimsky-Korsakov.
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| Evacuation |
General P.N. By this time, Wrangel had already issued an order to expel all cadets, minors and children who had not graduated from secondary schools from the ranks of the White Army, and to send them to the disposal of Lieutenant General V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov. Cadets from various corps and young people who had interrupted their studies and ended up in the ranks of the White Army began to arrive in the corps. In the newly created cadet corps, practically all cadet corps except Siberian, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and Don were represented.
From October 22, 1920, in accordance with the order of P.N. Wrangel's corps became known as the "Crimean Cadet Corps". The corps was assigned a scarlet shoulder strap with white piping and two separate letters “KK” in yellow. By this time, the strength of the corps was approximately 500 people, and it was decided to place some of the students in premises adapted for barracks in Massandra.
On the night of November 1, 1920, the evacuation of the corps from Crimea began. The junior company was loaded onto the steamer "Konstantin", and the main part - onto the steam barge "Chrisi". They did not want to use this old flat-bottomed barge to transport evacuees at all. But when there were no ships left in the Yalta port to load the Crimean Cadet Corps, an order was given to evacuate the corps on this ship. The ship's mechanics, not wanting to work for whites, declared that the machine was faulty. When they were threatened with execution, the car was “quickly repaired” and the barge went out to sea. V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov, not trusting the ship's crew, ordered two cadets who had experience in the navy to keep an eye on the helmsman so that he did not change course.
It soon became clear that the ship was not going to Constantinople, but to Odessa. The captain and helmsman were immediately arrested, and cadet M. Karateev, who had sailed for eight months before entering the cadet corps as a signalman on a destroyer, took the helm. Together with another cadet, they steered the ship in the right direction, but discovered that the compass readings were incorrect. Next to the steering wheel were iron gymnastic apparatus. With great difficulty, the cadets managed to take the ship to Constantinople.
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On the fifth day, the barge and steamer arrived at the Constantinople roadstead. On the roadstead of Constantinople, the Crimean cadets managed to show themselves worthily in an environment that required from them not only endurance and patience, but also a certain courage. Russian ships were met in Constantinople by ships from many countries. On the ship “Chrisi”, where the Crimean Cadet Corps was located, on the initiative of Vice-Non-Commissioned Officer Mikhail Karateev, signals went up on the yards: “we suffer hunger” and “we suffer thirst.”
These signals had an effect. After some time, an English ship approached the barge “Chrisi”, where the cadets were located. A film camera was installed on its upper deck, and next to it stood a table on which stood a pile of white bread cut into slices. There were also smartly dressed women and men, including one Russian. When asked if the cadets were hungry, they answered in the affirmative.
The cadets expected to be photographed and then fed. It turned out that the British wanted to capture the moment when bread would be thrown to the cadets and the hungry cadets would rush to pick it up from the deck. When the women began to throw slices of bread into the crowd of cadets, some of them already rushed to pick it up. The authorities were confused, and at that moment the voice of the “general” of the release, L. Lazarevich, was heard, who, assessing the situation, shouted: “Don’t touch this bread. Don’t you see what this bastard wants to film to show “Russian savages” fighting over food.”
Chunks of bread fell on the cadets' heads, but they stood motionless, as if not noticing it. L. Lazarevich asked the British to leave them alone. Offended by this behavior of the Russian youth, the English ship soon departed from the Chrissi. The quarantine at the Constantinople roadstead dragged on, as it turned out that by that time no country had shown interest in Russian youths. Finally, news was received that the cadet was ready to accept the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. On December 8, 1920, the corps arrived at Baqar Bay in the Kingdom of S.H.S. and from there to railway transported to the city of Strnische. The Crimean Cadet Corps was located in barracks built by the Austrians for prisoners of war.
The 1921-1922 academic year began in barracks converted into classrooms. There were not enough teaching aids, textbooks and notebooks. The cadets simply had to memorize a lot of things during the lessons themselves. On December 2, 1921, the Supreme Council considered the issue of transferring the Crimean Cadet Corps from Strnishche to Bila Tserkva. By that time, the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Donskoy Mariinsky Institute were already located in Bila Tserkva. The sovereign commission feared that the appearance of the Crimean Corps in Bila Tserkva could negatively affect the situation in the Russian colony and in the city as a whole. Colonel Bazarevich, who spoke at a meeting of the Sovereign Commission on behalf of the Russian military attache, Major General Pototsky, had to give guarantees “that in the event of the Crimean Cadet Corps transferring to Bila Tserkva, he vouches for complete order in this corps and guarantees that the corps will not interfere into the life of the local colony and the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Don Mariinsky Institute located there.” In the second half of October 1922, the Crimean Corps was provided with two stone three-story barracks-type buildings on the outskirts of the city in Bila Tserkva for placement. The buildings were not suitable for accommodating children.
The Educational Council, at its meeting on August 17, 1929, in pursuance of the proposal of the State Commission on June 23, 1929, decided:
1. In view of the message from the War Ministry to the State Commission about the need for the Military Department of the building now occupied by the Russian Corps in Sarajevo, to recognize that there are currently three cadet corps, namely the Crimean - in Bila Tserkva, the Don Emperor Alexander III - in Goradzha and Russian - in Sarajevo, are subject to consolidation into two buildings with the location of the first in Bila Tserkva and the second - in Goradzha and with the assignment to the corps in Bila Tserkva of the name "First Russian Cadet Corps" and the corps in Goradzh of the name "Second Russian Emperor Alexander III Don Cadet Corps" .
The Kiev Cadet Corps, after great upheavals in Ukraine and regime changes of the Provisional Government, Petliurists, Hetman, and Bolsheviks, arrived in Odessa in an organized manner in December 1919 and was housed in the building of the Odessa Cadet Corps. By this time, the 2nd company of the Polotsk Cadet Corps, evacuated from Polotsk in 1915, was already in the Odessa Corps.
All three buildings lived their own lives in Odessa and with their directors. There were no special measures for the evacuation of cadet corps from Odessa. On the night of January 25, 1920, part of the cadets, under the command of officers, headed to the port, where they were taken on board by the English cruiser Ceres.
The hesitation and lack of management of the director of the Odessa corps, Colonel V.A. Bernatsky, according to eyewitnesses, led to the fact that time was lost. On the morning of January 25, two cadets of the 5th class of the Odessa corps, on their own initiative, gathered all 350 cadets who were in the corps building, lined them up, and under the command of senior cadets, the column headed to the port. The cruiser Ceres was still in the roadstead and took them on board. Later, the first group was transferred to the steamer "Rio Negro", which delivered the cadets to the Greek port of Thessaloniki, from where the cadets traveled by train to the Kingdom of S.H.S.
The second group of 350 cadets was transferred to the Bulgarian steamer Tsar Ferdinand, which delivered the cadets to the port of Varna. From Varna, the cadets were taken to the city of Sisak in the Kingdom of S.H.S. With this group, the treasury of the Volunteer Army was taken away, money in the amount of 2,711,588 rubles, and the treasury of the Odessa Corps - 30,445 rubles. In Belgrade, money was exchanged for Serbian currency.
By order of the authorized Russian military agent (military attache) General V.A. Artamonov On March 10, 1920, the cadets of the Kyiv, Odessa and Polotsk corps were consolidated into one, which received the name “Consolidated Cadet Corps”.
Lieutenant General Boris Viktorovich Adamovich, the former head of the Vilna Military School, was appointed director of the corps. B.V. Adamovich recalled: “I accepted 95 cadets and 18 personnel as part of the Kyiv corps, and 126 cadets and 20 personnel as part of the Odessa corps. On April 25, another 42 cadets arrived, making their way by land with battles and losses across the Dniester to Romania under the command of Colonel Gushchin and Captain Remmert. Thus, a total of 263 cadets and 40 personnel gathered in the first corps.”
The cadets who arrived in Yugoslavia were initially stationed in two places - in Pancevo near Belgrade and in Sisak near Zagreb; in June they united in Sarajevo and began to settle in the Kralja Petra provided to the corps. The complex of buildings was ideal for housing the cadet corps. On June 17, the first meeting of the Pedagogical Committee took place and the revival of the cadet corps began.
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| Russian Cadet Corps. 1929 academic year. In a workshop |
Within a short time, the corps changed its name several times according to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, General P.N. Wrangel and his representative in Constantinople, General A.S. Lukomsky.
On September 1, 1929, the corps received the name “First Russian Cadet Corps,” and on December 6, on the day of the corps holiday in the same year, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia appointed Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as chief of the corps. The corps became known as the “First Russian Cadet Corps of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.”
The strength of the corps was set at 300 cadets, distributed among 3 companies. From the first days of its existence in the corps, by order of General B.V. Adamovich, pedagogical, educational and economic committees were created.
In material terms, the situation of the corps was difficult throughout the entire period of its existence. Initially, funds for maintaining the corps in Sarajevo were allocated by the Office of the Russian Military Agent (Attache) and the Representative of the Commander-in-Chief and by exchanging the brought Volunteer Army money for Serbian currency. Things, food, beds were given partly by the American Red Cross. In Sarajevo, furnishings, food, clothing, linen, and medicine were received from the Serbian commissariat and military warehouses. After the creation of the State Commission, financing of the corps was carried out by this commission.
Training sessions in the cadet corps began according to the 1915 program and were conducted mainly according to notes from teachers. Textbooks, geographic Maps, other teaching aids were very rare. There were no pens, pencils, or writing paper. At first, the main efforts of the teaching staff of the corps were aimed at ensuring that pupils of the 7th grade, if possible, mastered the program and graduated from the corps in the shortest possible time.
Class inspector Colonel V.A. Rozanov, speaking at the 300th meeting of the Pedagogical Committee, noted: “The first graduation was in August 1920. Let me remind you of the atmosphere at the beginning of classes: instead of desks there are tables and stools, familiar to you from exams, the absence of blackboards and textbooks. Classes are recorded by teachers, in their words. Picture of a foreign language class: a sheet of wrapping paper is pinned on the wall, the teacher writes with colored chalk, this is how the class learns to read. The first book of the French language: the reader of “Popovich” is the same for all classes.” Russian language: we were glad when we got from Prague the book “Native Speech” - as an anthology for the first grade, and for the senior classes, Mandelkern’s anthology with a German-Russian dictionary for Germans studying the Russian language. Geography lesson of grades VI-VII - on the wall is a map of Russia, torn from a randomly found textbook from one of the cadets. We were glad to see every teaching aid. In May 1928, Lieutenant General B.V. Adamovich visited the residence of King Alexander I on the occasion of a state holiday and presented him, on behalf of the cadet corps, with an album with photographs depicting the life of the corps. The king accepted the album presented to him with satisfaction and sent a check to the corps in the amount of 5,000 dinars for the needs of graduates of the cadet corps in 1928. In 1929, the issue of preserving the corps was decided. Thanks to the intervention of King Alexander I, the corps was preserved, transferred from Sarajevo to Bila Tserkva and united with the Crimean corps. Classes I, II, and III were reopened in the building. Summarizing the results of the work of the cadet corps in the 1932-1933 academic year, B.V. Adamovich noted at a meeting of the Pedagogical Committee: “My assessment of the entire cadet mass is that it is a blessing to have such a composition. “I, as a director, with such an exceptionally good condition of the building, find time for both personal work and personal relaxation.”
The next academic year 1933-1934 once again became a year of new great tests for the First Russian Cadet Corps. Already in March 1933, the decision of the Sovereign Commission to unite the First and Second Russian Don Emperor Alexander III cadet corps became known in the First Russian Cadet Corps. In this regard, at the end of the first half of the year B.V. Adamovich asked teachers to be more attentive to assessing the knowledge of students in the corps. The merger of the two cadet corps completely unexpectedly revealed a problem that had not yet existed in the First Russian Cadet Corps. It turned out that VI class cadets Maksimov, Chirko and some others who arrived with the Don Corps were “infected with Bolshevism.” For the cadet corps this was an unheard of, extraordinary incident. During the proceedings in Maksimov’s case, it was established that this case was isolated, and Maksimov’s views were not shared by the VI class cadets, the entire cadet mass was above suspicion, none of the old cadets.
On January 27, 1935, the 300th meeting of the Pedagogical Committee took place, which to a certain extent summed up the activities of the cadet corps over the 15 years of its existence. The report of the director of the corps on this occasion said: “Our Corps, formed by combining the preserved personnel of the Kiev and Odessa Corps, which accepted the legal seniority of the Kiev Corps and united living people, memories and traditions of Polotsk, Petrovsky-Poltava, Vladikavkaz, Don, Siberian and Khabarovsk Cadet Corps, is now the first of the foreign and the last of the surviving Russian cadet corps, which continued their history and Russian cadetship for 15 years... Let us note that the cadetship itself turned out to be more stable than all other corporations of former Russian pets educational institutions, more and more clearly than all of them, it was expressed in the struggle for old Russia and life continues in the person of associations of all corps and societies - cadets, scattered throughout the world and not reconciled with the death of either their homeland or the nests that raised them, strong with two centuries of legends. In March 1936, General Boris Viktorovich Adamovich died after a serious illness. Class inspector Colonel V.A. was appointed acting director of the corps. Rozanov.
V.V. Sobolevsky wrote the poem “On the grave of the director of the corps, Lieutenant General Adamovich”:
In exile for the Russian cause,
For the cause of our dear Fatherland
You fought steadfastly and bravely,
Walking along a straight road.
Your soul and body have merged,
In the fight, sparing no effort,
I stood for him and did not bow down
And he laid down his life for the cadet.
And your business will be preserved
It lives in our hearts,
Every cadet will be inspired by them,
He will die bravely for his homeland.
So sleep well, my love,
In the monastery of Russian people,
Protected by foreign land
Far from your native fields!
The Russian Cadet Corps owed many of its successes to exceptionally strict discipline, which was maintained in the corps by General B.V. Adamovich from the moment of evacuation until his death. And later - General A.G. Popov. Lieutenant General B.V. Adamovich, who had the experience of commanding a battalion of cadets at the Kiev Military School and the Vilna Military School, which were exemplary in the Russian army, treated the cadets more like cadets of military schools, and not like children sent to be raised in the cadet corps.
The very difficult academic year 1939-1940 was approaching. Started in September 1939. Second World War excited the cadet. At the beginning school year There has not yet been a deterioration in discipline or a drop in academic performance. However, the director of the corps and the officers-educators somehow sensed that some kind of change was taking place in the inner world of the students. Some of them became more thoughtful and focused, others became more irritated and had a desire to disrupt the internal order in the building.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lermontov, one of the descendants of the great Russian poet on his father’s side, was born on January 26, 1925 in Yugoslavia. My father served in the Russian army, took part in the civil war on the side of the whites, and was evacuated to Yugoslavia with the Volunteer Army. His mother died. In 1933, Mikhail entered the First Russian Cadet Corps. Often, for some offense, the senior cadets locked him alone in the class and gave him the task, as a “descendant of the great Russian poet,” to write poetry and did not let him out of the class until he was ready to present to them what he had written.
Mikhail Lermontov studied hard in the cadet corps and not because he was incapable of studying, but simply, as his officers-educators noted, he was lazy. And he himself admitted this in a conversation with the author. In the 3rd grade he was retained for the second year, and moved to the 4th grade with a re-examination. When World War II began, M. Lermontov, without graduating from the corps, left it with a group of cadets and entered service in the Russian Security Corps.
On April 6, 1941, troops of Germany and its allies attacked Yugoslavia. The conscription of Russian emigrants living in this country into the Yugoslav army began. Many joined the troops voluntarily, including graduates of Russian cadet corps. About 300 graduates of the cadet corps graduated from Yugoslav military schools and academies and entered service in the Yugoslav army. All of them took part in the first battles against the Wehrmacht - there were killed, wounded, and captured. Two weeks before the attack of Germany and its allies on Yugoslavia, the director of the corps sent almost all the cadets home. In May 1941, the occupation authorities allowed the 21st graduating class to take final exams. With great difficulty, the cadets gathered in the corps by May 25. Written exams began on June 20, and oral exams began on June 22. In the midst state exams On June 22, the cadets learned the news that amazed them: Germany attacked the Soviet Union. This was a big shock for the cadets. While preparing for the final exams, the cadet corps was visited by a group of German generals and officers. The Germans learned that the museum of the cadet corps contains German banners captured by the Russian army during the First World War. The Germans wanted to take these banners from the cadet corps. Corps Director General A.G. Popov was forced to give the corresponding order. The museum parted with trophies obtained in the battles of the First World War. In July 1942, the director of the cadet corps received instructions from the Bureau for the Protection of Russian Emigrants to requisition musical instruments cadet corps for the needs of the German army. General A.G. Popov, having received a message about the impending requisition, ordered to identify all the working instruments necessary for the corps orchestra to play and hide them. The German military musicians who came to inspect the instruments and requisition them were shown something that had no significance for the corps. 9 such instruments were taken, then 7 of them were returned. The Germans kept the trumpet and baritone. On March 31, 1942, the Don Mariinsky Institute was liquidated. On April 7, a representative of the German command arrived at the corps and demanded that the corps immediately move to the vacated building of the institute. The occupation forces needed the building of the cadet corps.
In mid-April, under pouring rain, the First Russian Cadet Corps left the barracks, which first housed the Crimean, and since 1929, the First Russian Cadet Corps. Several dozen carts sent by the local population were brought to the building, and the relocation to the new premises began.
The building of the Don Mariinsky Institute, 5 times smaller than the previous building, was not ready to receive new settlers. After the institute moved out of it, the building fell into complete disrepair in a short time: there was no water, the stoves in the kitchen were out of order, the toilets and washrooms were in disrepair.
The Cadet Corps was evacuated from Bila Tserkva in early September 1944 before the arrival of Red Army units. The corps was provided with three semi-open freight cars with low sides, into which the cadets and personnel with their families were loaded, headed by the corps director, General A.G. Popov.
On September 15, a corps of 140 people arrived in Vienna. The further route of the train ran through the territory of Hungary. The cadet was accompanied by a German non-commissioned officer, an Austrian by nationality, who had a document for travel to the “cadet school”. On the way, the train was bombed by Allied aircraft. It was difficult to organize everyday life while the train was traveling. They ate haphazardly and exchanged their clothes for food. The local population did not understand how the Russians fled from the Russians, whom the residents of the occupied cities were eagerly awaiting.
On September 17, 1944, the train arrived in the Austrian city of Eger, which was declared the final point of the journey. After leaving the train, the cadets moved in formation towards the camp where they were asked to stay. Of the personnel ranks, only General A.G. remained with the cadets. Popov. The clothes were sent for disinfection, from where they were not returned to the cadets. At the end of September 1944, the director of the corps, General A.G. Popov announced to the cadets that the corps was disbanding. However, the cadets continued to stick together and remained an organized team in the camp. In January 1945, a platoon of senior cadets joined the Russian liberation army General A. Vlasov. There are 106 cadets left in the camp. In mid-February 1945, the remaining cadets moved to Gmünd. After the liberation of Vienna, the cadets remaining in the camp marched to Salzburg, which was located in the American zone of occupation. In Salzburg, the cadets were sent to a camp for Russian refugees from Yugoslavia. Thus ended the history of the cadet corps created in Yugoslavia in 1920.
The lyceum corps of Emperor Nicholas II was established on January 1, 1930 in Paris, existed until 1964 and became the last foreign Russian cadet corps.
In 1926, during the VII Congress of Foreign Cadets in Paris, a meeting took place between Lieutenant General V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov with a group of graduates of the 1st Moscow Empress Catherine II Cadet Corps. During this meeting, a desire was expressed to open a cadet corps in Paris. Among those who met with V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov, was a graduate of the Naval Corps Belousov, who studied for some time in the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps. Belousov not only showed interest in the idea expressed, but also decided to take an active part in finding funds to purchase a building for the building.
Soon, on official business, Belousov flew to the United States, where he really hoped to find support from one of his many acquaintances. He pinned special hopes on one of his friends from Marine Corps midshipman Anastas Vonsyatsky, married to a rich American.
To make the conversation substantive, Belousov brought with him two illustrated magazines from the history of the Crimean Cadet Corps. In one of the magazines, the photographs depicted small, ragged and dirty cadets who had just arrived from Russia to the Kingdom of S.H.S., and in the other - they were already in cadet uniform as students of the Crimean Corps under the leadership of V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov.
“Having shown these magazines to Vonsiatsky and singing our “Zveriad” with him,” Belousov wrote in a letter to one of his friends, “I said that I was sure that he would help the general in his good endeavor. Vonsiatsky asked: “How much do you need?” I said that I would answer in three days and sent a telegram to Rimsky-Korsakov. Two days later I received an answer: “Okay, if it’s 100 thousand francs.” I told Vonsiatsky - 200 thousand francs. Without saying a word, he signed a check for 200 thousand francs (then $20,000).
With the money received, a house was bought in the town of Villiers-les-Bel, 18 km north of Paris. The building provided to the corps was neglected, no one lived in it. The front of the building faced the street, and on the back side there was a large area overgrown with grass and bushes. The furnishings in the building were modest and sparse. Gradually the building was put in order and adapted for classes. A spacious area adjacent to the building was turned into a parade ground for drills, games and gymnastics classes. The lyceum building began to form from scratch. Everything had to be obtained: beds for bedrooms, desks for classes, textbooks and teaching aids, cadet uniforms. For this purpose, they organized charity balls and collected funds among Russian people who wanted to recreate the cadet corps.
Due to the fact that French law prohibited the existence of foreign military educational institutions on French territory, the educational institution was alternately called the Corps, the Corps Lyceum or the Lyceum of Emperor Nicholas II, or the Russian Lyceum, and before closing in 1964, simply the Russian School. The Russian Committee in charge of the affairs of the corps was headed by General E.K. Miller, and after his abduction by Soviet security officers, Major General E.Yu. Bem.
In accordance with the approved regulations, “The Corps-Lyceum of Emperor Nicholas II is a closed educational institution and aims to educate and educate Russian children and youth in the spirit of the motto of the Imperial Russian Cadet Corps - “Faith, Tsar and Fatherland.” The corps is not a charitable institution and its current needs are supported by receipts from fees for students. Children of refugees are accepted into the corps; during admission, preference is given to the sons of former cadets. The corps course is designed for 8 classes (if necessary, then a preparatory one) with a cadet corps program modified according to the conditions of time and place.
During all the years of its existence, the corps functioned through contributions from parents, private donations, profits from charity concerts and balls, and the annual assistance of Lydia Pavlovna Deterling.
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| Russian Cadet Corps. Concert by I.P. Komarevskaya. 1938 |
During its existence (1930-1964), the corps went through three periods in its development:
1930-1937 The corps was located in the town of Villiers-les-Bel, 18 km north of Paris. At this time, the formation of the corps took place. The 1st issue was produced.
1937-1959 The corps was located in Versailles. The new house was rented and restored through the efforts of Captain B.V. Sergeevsky. In the 40s There were over 100 cadets in the corps.
1959-1964 The corps moved to Dieppe, on the English Channel, where it was transported by L.S. Rakitin. In 1964, the building ceased to exist.
For Russian cadets, the new homeland is the USA, Canada, Australia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. But being absent-minded around the world did not break the cadet bond. From now on, their main motto was: “Scattered, but not dissolved.”
The fates of graduates of the Crimean Cadet Corps developed differently. But only a few of them managed to re-enter the gates of those buildings in which they began their cadet life in Russia, and which they left as boys and young men during the tragic years of the Civil War, continuing their cadet destiny in a foreign land. One of them was Boris Mikhailovich Vyshinsky, V graduation of the Crimean Cadet Corps in Bila Tserkva (1925).
About ten minutes later he was invited into the entrance hall, where he saw an officer with the rank of captain with a red bandage on his sleeve. After saluting and quickly introducing himself, the officer asked to see documents. Having flipped through the passport handed to him and listened to the request, he, without hiding his amazement, was silent for some time, and then briefly said: “Wait,” and, continuing to leaf through the passport, hastily left. The visitor and the boy left the checkpoint and began to stroll leisurely, without moving away from the checkpoint. The father was telling his son something, and every now and then he pointed to the school building visible behind the wall.
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A year had already passed since he, Boris Vyshinsky, returned from abroad to his hometown, which was now called Ordzhonikidze. The return was long, lasting several decades. There was one more step left for it to be complete. This step for him was to be a visit to the building of the former Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps, of which he always considered himself a student, and whose memory he carried throughout his entire life. When he and other cadets left this building in the spring of 1920, he did not know, and could not know, that a new countdown was beginning in his life. Then he was separated not only from his family and friends who remained in Vladikavkaz, not only from the city in which he was born, but, as it soon became clear, also from his homeland, which generations of the Vyshinskys served faithfully. And now, decades later, he stands in front of his building again.
Life is for the fatherland, honor is for no one!
(cadet motto)
For many Russians, especially the older generation, the word “cadet” evokes rather negative associations. To some, the cadets seem to be some kind of anachronism, connected either with in recent years the reign of the Romanov family, or with the era of Russia in the early 90s. Some people are even sure that the Cadets are representatives of the Constitutional Democrats of the times of the first State Dumas. All this confusion arose after we decided overnight to abandon those youth movements that were cultivated during the Soviet era, but did not have time to formulate the idea of a new youth vector.
It was at this moment, and this is 1992-1993, that in Russia, instead of pioneers, Boy and Girl Scouts began to appear, and instead of Suvorovites, or, at best, on a par with Suvorovites, those same cadets. At the same time, as often happens with us, the youth were gathered, but they forgot to tell why they were gathered. For many young people, wealthy parents did not fail to buy a new uniform with golden epaulettes, caps with sparkling cockades, and took their children, yesterday’s schoolchildren, to where, as it was said, the cadets would study. The main thing is that they managed to tell the very young guys that they are the glory and pride of the new Russia and that they have nothing to do with some Suvorovites and other Nakhimovites, and are ABOVE all these remnants of socialism.
With this thought, the youth began to comprehend the difficult cadet science. The only trouble was that the high leadership decided to get rid of Soviet remnants, but among the teaching corps there were increasingly those same teachers who had seen nothing else but these remnants in their lives. And they began to teach the cadets the same way they were taught in party schools. So it turned out that during the day the new Russian cadets had to either read the Lord’s Prayer aloud or sing bravura Soviet songs about the Red commander Shchors and the defeat of the White Army. The textbooks seemed to remain mostly Soviet, but the history teacher tried to convey something completely anti-Soviet. At the same time, ministers of the surrounding churches, former repressed people, and retired intelligence service generals, that is, those who carried out repression, were invited to the holidays. In general, something in this system had to be changed, since the cadets themselves had difficulty understanding what awaited them in the future and what kind of education they were receiving here. But they were in no hurry to change anything...
And the most surprising thing was that from year to year the number of young boys and even girls wishing to study at cadet schools only increased. At the same time, the youth were not embarrassed that the prospects for continuing to serve military affairs in Russia after graduating from cadet school, to put it mildly, were not the most promising. To be more precise, most military universities today do not guarantee any benefits to graduates of cadet schools. And with the introduction of the Unified State Exam, the chances of a graduate of a cadet corps and a regular school being admitted to a military university are absolutely equal.
However, it must be recognized that young people are often driven not so much by the desire to devote their later life military service, how much it takes to get a truly high-quality education - the education that those very pre-revolutionary cadets were proud of. And he had something to be proud of!
If we touch on the historical stages of the development of the cadet movement in Russia, the first cadet corps was established in 1732 by Field Marshal von Minich. The very word “cadet” was borrowed from Prussian young people who connected their lives with military affairs. They, in turn, borrowed it from the French: cadet (French) - junior.
Graduation from the cadet corps guaranteed a further brilliant military career. During the training process, the cadets received very extensive knowledge not only in military affairs, but also learned the humanities, mathematics, physics, chemistry, fencing, ballroom dancing, and truly knightly manners. In those years, the unofficial name of the cadets appeared - “young knights”. Von Minich even called the cadet corps itself a “Knight’s Academy.” In this case, 13-year-old boys were attracted not by the name, but by the level of education they received and very serious prospects, as they say now, for career growth. Von Minich's cadet corps was located in St. Petersburg and graduated several hundred students. Many outstanding people of Russia of that time graduated from the cadet corps.
At the same time, oddly enough, there were no cadet corps in Moscow until 1992. It is not surprising that real cadet traditions have not yet had time to take shape not only in the current capital, but also in other Russian cities. Behind the bright signs in Russian regions there may be educational institutions (“cadet corps”) of a very dubious reputation. It often happens that as part of the implementation of a program to level out homelessness and neglect in boarding schools for orphans, the sign simply changes, and the boarding school is declared nothing less than a cadet corps. It is not uncommon for entire cadet academies to emerge in the same buildings that previously housed secondary schools. What is this connected with? Is it really with the general desire of the leadership of educational institutions to introduce young people to military culture, gallantry and the art of being human in general? I don’t argue, there are, thank God, such cases in Russia. However, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. All other cadet corps are just another move by the leadership in the conditions of a demographic hole to attract students into the walls of their educational institutions. One can also understand the leaders, because the notorious per capita funding puts them in an awkward position - “get students as best you can.”
Naturally, the question arises, where can managers find such gallant teachers who will dance a square dance, whistle in the air with a sword, and solve a trigonometric equation, because with the new Federal standards, Russia needs just such teachers...
As a result, such a cadet studies and suffers in his cadet corps and cannot understand how he fundamentally (except for the cap and shoulder straps, of course) differs from Vasya from the next door, who also wipes his pants, only in a regular school...
And at this time, the leaders are again concocting reports on the work successfully done: about how shooting was carried out with only wooden machine guns, how the cadets held a ball in a gym with a leaking roof, how voluntary (and what else!) donations were made by the parents of the cadets a cadet temple was built in the school yard, to which the local priest drives up in a BMW X5 (of course, they keep silent about the BMW report).
In general, no matter what the child amuses himself with, as they say, as long as he doesn’t hang himself. This, it seems, is the doctrine of modern youth movements, which includes the cadet movement. After all, our country does not yet have any unified legislative framework that would place cadet schools on some kind of legal basis. Something will happen next...