Kelly Laurence, Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran

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Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran

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Griboyedov accepted the necessity of securing Russia’s frontiers in

the Caucasus, and of subduing the clans which threatened them. But

his travels with Velyaminov had brought him in touch with the day-to-

day realities of the Yermolovian policies of terror; for the first time, he

saw them in practice for himself. An episode which especially shocked

him is described in a letter to Küchelbecker on 27 November:

Kuchuk Dzhangotov is the most important feudal overlord from Chechnya

to Abkhazia. He is considered loyal to us and no subject dares molest

his stallions. His son, Dzhambulat, was a favourite of Alexis Petrovich

[Yermolov] and went with him on his Persian embassy of 1817. He did not

share his father’s predilection for Russia; in the last irruption of raiders

from beyond the Kuban he was on their side. He is generally considered

the finest shot and best rider of all the young aristocrats; he would

undertake any exploit if only the Kabardan maidens would praise him

in their songs around the Aouls [villages]. The order went out to capture

and arrest him. Accompanied by his father he appeared voluntarily at the

Fort of Nalchik. I was standing by the window as I saw the old man in his

turban, evidence of his pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, appear with his

son. Slaves followed on foot. Dzhambulat was in a magnificent costume,

a coloured surcoat over his armour. He carried his kinjal and a short

sword, a rich saddle and over his shoulder a bow with a quiver. In the

reception room, we heard the GOC’s orders. Arrest in this context did not

just mean surrendering his weapons and by doing so losing his honour,

it meant craving forgiveness and an admission of guilt which he deter-

minedly refused to give. His father urged him not to destroy himself and

all those subject to him. The older men pleaded with Velyaminov not to

use force on the bold youth. Sentries were ordered to patrol the room

containing the rebel. Any attempt at flight was to be met with shots.

I covered my window so that the old man, his father, should not see

what was happening in the house opposite.

Suddenly a shot rang out. Kuchuk Dzhangotov started and raised his

eyes to the sky. I looked around. Dzhambulat had fired from the window

which he had kicked in, then he had lifted his arm with a kinzhal to stave

off the people around him, leaning his head and breast from the window;

at that moment a rifle shot and bayonet straight in the neck had thrown

him to the ground; after this several further bullets put an end to him.

His companion who had jumped behind him in the middle of the yard

was likewise shot point blank several times; he fell on his knees, but

they were shattered to bits, leant on his left arm and with his right just

managed to raise his pistol, but missed and was instantly shot dead.

Farewell, my friend. I have been so interrupted that I have not been

able to describe this bloody event properly to you. It happened a month

ago and I have not been able to banish it from my memory. I was sorry

not so much for those who fell so gloriously, but for the father. He has

not been seen since.

Despite this tragedy, which ‘at one blow removed the two supports of

a courageous, noble people’, Griboyedov admired Velyaminov as a

first-class soldier and a ‘supremely worthy and impressive man’. He

accompanied him to Ekaterinengrad at the end of October, spending

two months there on a further tour of inspection. He shared a hut with

his former diplomatic superior Mazarovich, who had arrived there for

consultations with Yermolov, whiling away the evenings by reading him

extracts from Woe from Wit. Yermolov arrived there on 22 November, in

order to prepare for his next punitive expedition to Chechnya. Writing

to Beguichov on 7 December, Griboyedov told him that Yermolov did not

want him on the expedition, saying that he should be in Tiflis to catch

up on Persian and diplomatic paperwork. Even so, he had talked him

into letting him accompany him, to see ‘the fight for the mountains and

forests’, and to ‘bring freedom and enlightenment to the roll of drums

and the whistle of Congreve rockets’.

Defiantly, Griboyedov justified

the unjustifiable with a memorable forecast: ‘We shall hang them [the

Chechens], and forgive them, and spit on the verdict of history’.

Griboyedov’s renewed involvement with Yermolov may well have

encouraged this bellicose stance, so out of tune with the tone of ‘The

Brigands of the Chegem’. Once again he had fallen under Yermolov’s spell.

I must tell you, he is cleverer than I ever found him before. The pleasure

of his company banishes the boredom of attending him during games

of whist, which is unavoidable due to our confined quarters. He is

unbelievably talkative and friendly and original until the early hours. I

cannot admire his physical and moral qualities enough.

He went on to praise Velyaminov and to regret the absence of General

Davydov, who might have lightened Yermolov’s responsibilities; it was a

palpable mistake of the Government to refuse him a Caucasian command.

Other generals such as Stahl are fools, Gorchakov is a cardboard soldier,

Shulgin is no better, a decisive, warlike and clever soldier is needed

here! Davydov could put right many of Yermolov’s mistakes, he cannot

be everywhere at the same time. Now I have known many local leaders,

Princes and Uzdens. Two were shot under my very eyes, others were

hanged in chains, others flogged through the ranks, another hung over

the river where he swings gently in the wind. But to impose order by

alternating terror and generosity requires time. Let us see how the next

punitive expedition works out against the Chechens; they have been

stirred up by their Imam … To Chechnya! To Chechnya is the cry. The

main obstacle is that war here has a special character, you have to

smoke the enemy out of impenetrable forests and caves; to kill him off

means nothing.

Stimulated by the prospect of action, his spirits soared. ‘You cannot

believe what a cheerful state of mind I am in,’ he told his friend.’ He made

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no excuses for his inconsistency. ‘People are not like clocks, they are not

always the same. Where will you find a book without contradictions?’

The expedition to Chechnya, at this stage only one of several border

skirmishes, was planned for the end of December. But meanwhile history

had taken a hand. On 19 November 1825, Tsar Alexander died unex-

pectedly at the age of forty-eight, whilst taking a cure in the little town of

Taganrog. Since he was childless, his expected successor was his brother

Constantine, at that time Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army and

Viceroy there in all but name. Three years previously, however, Constantine

had renounced his right to the throne. Married to a Polish commoner, and

traumatised by memories of his father’s murder, he preferred to govern in

Poland rather than risk assassination as the Tsar. Alexander had accepted

his renunciation, and nominated his younger brother Nicholas in his place.

But he had kept his decision secret, even from Nicholas, and it was only

a few days after this death that the document became known. By this

time, the Government and the army had sworn loyalty to Constantine

as the new heir. A period of confusion followed, Constantine refusing

either to leave Warsaw or to renounce the throne; Nicholas, dithering on

the sidelines, reluctant to seem to be usurping his brother’s place. For

a fortnight, the Government of the country ground to a standstill.

Yermolov had received the news of Alexander’s death at Ekaterinengrad

on 9 December, and had taken the oath of allegiance to Constantine that

same day. In St Petersburg, however, the question of the succession had

already been resolved in favour of Nicholas, his brother having formally

renounced the crown on 6 December. The ceremony in which the

Senate, State Council and Guards swore allegiance to the new Tsar was

arranged for 14 December.

For the conspirators of the Northern Society, the uncertainties over the

succession seemed to present the ideal opportunity to strike; a rising in

St Petersburg was fixed for the day of the ceremony. We do not know

how much Griboyedov knew of their intentions. Yermolov, it seems, had

no foreknowledge of them, though he referred to ‘strange rumours’ in a

letter he sent to a fellow officer in Taganrog. Griboyedov, according to one

anecdote, seems to have known much more. Yermolov had a close friend

in the North Caucasus, a wealthy sheep farmer, Aleksei Fyodorovich

Rebrov. The story comes from General Davydov, who had heard it either

from Yermolov or direct from Rebrov himself. He tells us that in mid-

December in Ekaterinengrad, where Generals Yermolov and Velyaminov,

Griboyedov and Rebrov were gathered round a card-table in the house

of some Cossack general, Griboyedov turned to Rebrov and said, ‘At this

very moment in St Petersburg, an appalling blood-letting is taking

place’. Rebrov was greatly struck by this remark, which he recounted to

Yermolov two years later.

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The story gains its interest from the date. If, as Davydov relates,

it took place in mid-December, before the news of the uprising of

14 December in St Petersburg could possibly have reached them, it would

prove that Griboyedov had advance warning of what was happening. If

it took place later, when the news was generally known, such a remark

would have no significance.

It was not until 25 December that a feld jaeger, or government

courier, arrived with official confirmation that Constantine had abdicated

and that Nicholas was Emperor. By this time the conspiracy had

collapsed in ruins, and most of Griboyedov’s friends in St Petersburg

had been arrested.

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127

On the evening of 13 December 1825, there was a noisy meeting in

Ryleyev’s flat at which the decision to stage the coup for the following

day was confirmed.

For some weeks previously, the plotters had been

stirring up dissension within the various regiments in which they

served. The abdication of Constantine, a far more liberal figure than

Nicholas, gave them the chance to claim that Nicholas had usurped the

throne, and to rally the troops under the twin slogan of ‘Constantine

and the constitution’; many of the soldiers who followed them thought

that the word constitutsiya (‘constitution’) was the name of Constantine’s

wife. It was planned that the troops should gather on the Senate Square

on the following morning and then march to the Winter Palace and

arrest the Tsar. A few of those present thought the uprising was

premature, but most agreed that things had already gone too far to turn

back. ‘We were so utterly determined either to succeed or die that we

did not come to the least agreement in the event of failure,’ wrote

Bestuzhev years later. ‘We shall die, oh, how gloriously we shall die!’

cried Odoyevsky, exalted by Ryleyev’s eloquence and the prospect of

action at last.

Prince Sergei Trubetskoy, the senior army officer amongst the con-

spirators, had been elected as leader of the military operation. On the

morning of 14 December, however, he lost his nerve completely and

slipped away to swear allegiance to the new Tsar, spending the rest of

the day in hiding in the Austrian embassy. Yakubovich, who had recently

arrived from the Caucasus, full of ardour for the revolutionary cause,

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The Decembrist

Débacle

was another who betrayed it on the day. He had been intended to lead

the Marine Guards in capturing the Winter Palace; at six in the morning,

after a sleepless night of doubt and indecision, he told Ryleyev and

Bestuzhev that he refused to carry out the plan.

The two defections were symptomatic of the day’s confusion. Of the

sixteen regiments stationed in St Petersburg, only parts of three of them

gathered in the Senate Square – some 3000 men in all. For five hours

they stood in the freezing cold, with no clear leadership or direction;

Ryleyev, a civilian, having tried vainly to whip up his officer associates,

finally returned home in despair. Nicholas, at first terrified of provoking a

full-scale insurrection, gathered courage as the day went on. The gallant

Miloradovich, who had tried to harangue the troops into surrendering

peacefully, was shot down by Kakhovsky. By three o’clock, the Tsar had

overcome his fears and scruples about using force, and had mobilised

12,000 troops. Reluctant to shed blood on the day of his accession, he

twice countermanded his own orders before he finally ordered his cannon

to fire on the mutineers. Within moments, the serried ranks of soldiers

had turned into a fleeing, panic-stricken mob; great numbers lay dead

and wounded on the square behind them. Throughout the night and

over the next few days, the leading conspirators were rounded up, to be

interrogated singly by the Tsar before being taken off in irons to the

Fortress of St Peter and St Paul. Trubetskoy, who had given himself up

to the police, provided most of the basic information about the chief

members of both the Southern and Northern Societies. Couriers were

despatched throughout Russia to arrest suspects.

The same confusion that had destroyed the revolution’s chances in

St Petersburg reigned among the members of the Southern Society. The

day before the uprising, Pestel’ had been arrested, following a police

enquiry begun before Alexander’s death. Deprived of his leadership, many

of his followers panicked. Muravyov-Apostol, on hearing the news of the

failed uprising in the capital (which reached the Southern Decembrists

on 23 December), at first contemplated suicide, then embarked on a last

desperate throw, rallying 800 members of his regiment to march on Kiev,

in the hopes that other disaffected troops would join him. No reinforce-

ments were forthcoming. On 3 January, the rebels were defeated by

government forces, and Apostol, severely wounded, was taken back to

St Petersburg for interrogation.

Yermolov was encamped at Chervlennaya on the river Terek, prepar-

atory to leaving for Chechnya, when the threefold news of Constantine’s

abdication, Nicholas’s accession as Tsar, and the failure of the St Petersburg

uprising reached him on 25 December. It was a bright sunny day, recalled

one of his aides, and a parade had been planned in honour of the

Commander-in-Chief as part of the Christmas festivities; all the camp

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gossip was of the forthcoming expedition against the Chechens. Suddenly

a troika came galloping up to the Commander-in-Chief’s hut and its

passenger, Feld Jaeger Damish, emerged, carrying a stout brown envelope.

Yermolov, off duty, and dressed in an unbuttoned frock coat, was

playing patience when Damish came in.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘read us the

news.’ He continued playing cards as Damish read out the official

announcement of the Tsar’s accession to the throne. When it came to

the passage stating that Nicholas would ‘follow in the footsteps of

Alexander the Blessed’, he remarked sarcastically that he was very

grateful to hear it. The casual tone of this remark, and his unceremonious

reception of the imperial emissary would be duly reported back to

Nicholas, already suspicious of Yermolov as a possible Decembrist

sympathiser. In the immediate aftermath of the rising, the fear that he

might raise the Caucasian corps against him seemed very real.

After he had finished reading the official announcement, and had

handed it over to the Commander-in-Chief, Damish began to speak

about the uprising. Griboyedov, who had been present as a trusted

member of Yermolov’s staff, stood nearby. His hands were so tightly

clenched together, noted Yermolov’s aide Liprandi (later to be involved

as a General in the charge of the Light Brigade), that the knuckles were

white. Then he smiled and, with a sweeping movement of his arms,

exclaimed, ‘Now, stand by for a real stir, and watch the sparks fly in St

Petersburg! How will it all end?’

There are differing accounts as to how soon Yermolov’s troops took

the oath of allegiance to the new Tsar. According to his own memoirs,

he ordered those stationed at Chervlennaya to take it at once and

despatched his Chief of Staff to Tiflis to deal with any remaining troops

and the civilian population. However, there seems to have been a delay

of two days before the troops on the spot took the oath, perhaps because

there was no priest available to administer it. To the ever-suspicious

Tsar, it may well have appeared that Yermolov had postponed the

ceremony till he knew for certain that the conspiracy had failed.

For Griboyedov, the news that his friends in St Petersburg were

facing trial and possible execution must have been shattering enough.

But he does not seem to have felt that he himself was in danger. He was

intent on taking part in Yermolov’s expedition to Chechnya, and had

been attached to the First Battalion of the Shirvan Regiment, which

were supplemented by Cossacks and some horse-drawn artillery. The

expedition set out for Grozny early in January. Already, however, the

question of Griboyedov’s implication in the plot was being raised in St

Petersburg. On 17 December, the first session of the Secret Committee

Appointed by his Majesty for the Purpose of Investigating Members of

Subversive Societies took place. Its purpose was to find out the full

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extent of the conspiracy in which members of some of the noblest

families in the land were implicated. How far had the rot spread? The

Tsar took a personal hand in questioning the chief suspects.

Trubetskoy, now a broken man, was one of those who put forward

Griboyedov’s name as a possible member of the Northern Society.

Bestuzhev and Ryleyev, on the other hand, staunchly denied that he

had ever joined it, though they admitted having had discussions with

him on the state of Russia; other friends under arrest, such as

Küchelbecker and Odoyevsky, avoided mentioning his name altogether.

Despite this, there was sufficient suspicion against Griboyedov to justify

issuing a warrant for his arrest. On 22 January, a courier from the

Ministry of War, Feld Jaeger Uklonsky, arrived in Grozny with a letter to

Yermolov from the Chief of Staff in St Petersburg, General Dibich, ordering

him to place Griboyedov under arrest.

In his letter, Dibich had specifically instructed Yermolov to see

that Griboyedov had no time to destroy any papers. It was typical of

Griboyedov’s recklessness or self-confidence that during the period

between receiving the news of the uprising and Uklonsky’s arrival, he

had made no attempt to do so. Fortunately, the travelling trunks

containing his papers were being pulled by the Shirvan regimental

bullocks, and were not drawn up next to his sleeping quarters. On

receiving Dibich’s letter, Yermolov immediately sent a message to

Griboyedov, warning him that his trunks were about to be searched.

With just an hour in hand, the faithful manservant Gribov (who, it was

said, knew everything about Griboyedov’s affairs) was able to drag his

cart from the column, open the trunks and burn the papers they

contained on his cooking stove; only the manuscript of Woe from Wit

escaped the pyre. He then brought them to the hut which Griboyedov

shared with a fellow officer, Shimanovsky, where they were placed at the

head of his bed to await the arrival of Uklonsky.

‘As usual I was having an argument with Griboyedov about Moscow,’

recalled Shimanovsky,

I was defending it, while he covered it with sarcasms. Suddenly the door

opened and Colonel Mishchenko, his commanding officer, came in

together with Talyzin [Yermolov’s adjutant] – immediately behind him

was the Feld Jaeger Uklonsky. Mishchenko went up to Griboyedov and

said ‘Alexander Sergeyevich, it is the wish of the Emperor that we

should arrest you. Where are your things and your papers?’ Griboyedov

nonchalantly showed him the trunks, which were dragged into the

middle of the room. They began to sort out his linen, and finally at the

bottom of one of them they came on a fairly thick notebook, which was

the manuscript of Woe from Wit. They asked if he had any more papers,

to which he replied that there were none, that all his property was in the

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trunks. Mishchenko had his trunks bound up and sealed. Griboyedov

was then transferred to other quarters with a sentry at each window and

the door.

Griboyedov spent the night under arrest. He did not get undressed;

other young officers, including Yermolov’s nephew Sergei Yermolov, and

Talysin, as duty officer, looked in on him from time to time, perhaps

to wish him luck or say goodbye. The next morning the trunks were

officially re-opened and inspected by Colonel Mishchenko, and Talysin,

representing Yermolov. Feld Jaeger Uklonsky then took over the

sealed chests.

In his letter to Dibich, to be delivered with the prisoner in St

Petersburg, Yermolov assured the German General (whom he detested)

that Griboyedov had been arrested ‘in such a way that he could not

destroy any papers’. He added a note of commendation: ‘I must tell Your

Excellency, Mr Griboyedov whilst serving attached to our Persian

Mission, and then attached to me, distinguished himself by the probity

and exemplary morality of his conduct, as well as in many other

admirable qualities.’

Yermolov had done his best for the young man who, according to

one witness, he ‘regarded almost as a son’. As Dibich later wrote to the

Tsar, ‘Yermolov loves Griboyedov, especially his unusual mind, fanatical

honesty, the diversity of his learning, and his amiability as a colleague’.

It was no surprise that the two men were on first-name terms, or that

Yermolov had tried to protect him. It may well be too that Yermolov

feared that some of the letters that were destroyed might have compro-

mised him personally. He had always been an outspoken critic of the St

Petersburg bureaucracy whose views could have been quoted by

Griboyedov’s friends. The correspondence in the trunks almost certainly

included letters from friends such as Bestuzhev, Küchelbecker, and

Alexander Odoyevsky, all now under arrest, as well as being scattered

with the names of other prominent Decembrists. Griboyedov would

have had a lot of explaining to do about his friendships, apparently so

intimate and warm, with so many of the leading conspirators. In the

opinion of Zavalyshin (himself arrested after the plot), Griboyedov derived

an important advantage during his interrogation from Yermolov’s

generosity in giving him time to burn his papers: ‘Quite a few of these

would have been highly dangerous’. He added that a number of other

senior figures had given similar chances to suspected Decembrists.

Griboyedov had left two other trunks containing papers in the care

of a Major Ogaryov at Vladikavkaz. These had to be retrieved and

brought to Ekaterinengrad by Uklonsky before leaving for St Petersburg,

thus delaying their departure until 30 January. Griboyedov showed

no undue alarm at this; however, on arrival at Ekaterinengrad, he

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managed to extract a number of letters from under the very eyes of the

officer on duty in the guard-house, and prevailed on a suspect about to

be released (a certain M.S. Alekseyev) to smuggle them out.

Relieved of the most damning evidence against him, Griboyedov

could spend the journey to St Petersburg turning over his line of defence

before the commission. Travelling on sledges, in appalling conditions of

frost and heavy snow, he and Uklonsky reached Moscow early on

6 February, where they stopped over for the day with Beguichov’s

brother Dmitri. Stepan Beguichov was rapidly alerted, and rushed to

see his friend, whom he found eating at table with his brother and a

third, white-haired figure in the uniform of a feld jaeger.

‘Why are you staring at him,’ asked Griboyedov jokingly. ‘Don’t

imagine this is just a simple courier. My good friend, the person you see

is not just a courier, he comes from a distinguished family, he is a

grandee of Spain, Don Lysko-Pleshivos-di-Parichentsa [or, roughly

translated, “Don Balding, the Hairless One”]’.

‘Such humour,’ wrote Beguichov, ‘showed me Griboyedov’s relation-

ship with his jailer. Griboyedov was cheerful after dinner; he turned to

his bodyguard, saying, ‘Surely you have beloved relatives here, shouldn’t

you go and visit them?’ The jailer was delighted to be liberated in this

way, and left.’

By 2a.m. they were on their way again, Griboyedov having probably

received a full briefing from Beguichov. Almost all of his St Petersburg

acquaintance had been rounded up. Zhandr had been arrested and

then released on 31 January. Küchelbecker had fled to Warsaw, and

was picked up there on 10 January, one of the last of the Northern

Society to be arrested.

The charges on which the leading Decembrists were tried were serious

– attempted murder of the Tsar and his brothers the grand dukes.

(Pestel’ had wanted ‘a gallows large enough to hang the whole Imperial

family’.)

There was also incitement to riot and armed mutiny, conflicting

with their oath of loyalty, and their declared intention of sweeping away

the autocracy in favour of a constitutional monarchy or a republic.

Witnesses before the commission therefore had to answer firstly whether

a given individual was a member of the conspiracy through one or other

of its secret societies, and secondly if he had known of its treasonable

aims and programme. In view of his long-standing friendships and daily

contact with so many of the leading Decembrists, it was not surprising

that Griboyedov should be included in the list of suspects.

Fortunately, there were a number of helpful circumstances on his side.

His mother, whose first reaction to his arrest was one of disapproval –

according to Beguichov, she described her son as ‘one of those Carbonari’

– was soon doing all she could behind the scenes. One of her trump

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