After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, the Supreme Criminal Court sentenced the leaders of the uprising P. I. Pestel, K. F. Ryleev, S. I. Muravyov-Apostol, P. G. Kakhovsky, and M. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin to death. The death sentence was carried out on the Kronverk of the Peter and Paul Fortress on July 13 (25), 1826.
A page from Pushkin’s manuscript depicting the executed Decembrists
Eyewitness accounts of the execution have been preserved in the stories of I. G. Shnitzler, N. V. Putyata, the head of the Kronverk at the Peter and Paul Fortress V. I. Berkov, who participated in the execution as an assistant police overseer, and in memoirs: the notes of Przhevalsky and M. A. Bestuzhev, letters of I. I. Gorbachevsky, and others. The gallows were erected on the Kronverk of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Almost no one in the city knew the time or place of the execution, so there were very few outside spectators: no more than 150–200 people. Two executioners participated in the execution, who, after the sentence was announced, knocked the benches out from under the condemned. At that moment, three nooses broke, and three of the condemned—Ryleev, Muravyov-Apostol, and Kakhovsky—fell onto the scaffold. This caused murmurs among the crowd, as in such cases the miraculously surviving condemned could hope for clemency. However, in accordance with the regulations of the Military Statute of 1714, the sentence was carried out.
They ascended one after another onto the platform and onto benches placed nearby under the gallows, in the order assigned in the sentence. Pestel was at the far right, Kakhovsky at the left (for the spectators, it was the opposite: Pestel stood on the left side, Kakhovsky on the right). Each had a rope wrapped around their neck; the executioner stepped down from the platform, and at that moment the platform collapsed downward. Pestel and Kakhovsky hanged; but the three who were between them were spared death. A terrible sight was presented to the spectators. Poorly tied ropes slipped over the tops of the greatcoats, and the unfortunate fell into the open pit, hitting ladders and benches. Since the Tsar was in Tsarskoye Selo and no one dared to order a postponement of the execution, they had to endure, in addition to terrible bruises, the agony of death twice. The platform was immediately repaired and the fallen were raised onto it again... Their necks were tied with ropes again, and this time successfully. A few seconds passed, and the drumbeat announced that human justice had been fulfilled. This was near the end of the fifth hour.
Witnesses and memoirists gave conflicting information about the place of the Decembrists’ execution, but as a result of investigations, the exact place of execution on the Kronverk of the Peter and Paul Fortress was determined.
The monument at the site of the Decembrists’ execution was erected in accordance with the order of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR and the decision of the Leningrad City Executive Committee for the 150th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising. The monument project was carried out by architects V. A. Petrov and A. G. Lelyakov, sculptors A. M. Ignatyev and A. G. Dema. The obelisk made of pink granite is installed on a granite pedestal, with a total height of 9 meters. On the front side is a bronze medallion with profiles of the executed Decembrists and an inscription: “At this place on July 13 (25), 1826, the Decembrists P. Pestel, K. Ryleev, P. Kakhovsky, S. Muravyov-Apostol, M. Bestuzhev-Ryumin were executed.” On the back side of the pedestal is a quote from A. S. Pushkin’s poem “To Chaadaev”:
“Comrade, believe, the star of captivating happiness will rise,
Russia will awaken from sleep and on the ruins of autocracy our names will be written!”
At the foot of the obelisk, on a separate granite base, is a forged plate with shackles and a broken sword. The monument was unveiled on December 25, 1975.
The profiles of the Decembrists on the bronze medallion reproduce the images of the profiles of the five executed Decembrists—Ryleev, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Muravyov-Apostol, Pestel, and Kakhovsky—which the English worker-engraver and writer, participant in the Chartist movement William Linton created at Herzen’s request for the cover and title page of the first issue of the almanac “Polar Star” in 1855.
Sources:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Памятник_на_месте_казни_декабристов
