Tulchyn During the Decembrists’ Time: Undiscovered Sources
The Tulchyn council was the most numbered in the Southern Society of Decembrists, although its existence is not thoroughly described: a rather small number of the Decembrists’ memoires tells us about Tulchyn during that time. This article tries to expose additional sources, which include memorial sources in the first place. Some of those texts were noticed by the Pushkinists, but were left untouched by the Decembrists researchers. Journals and memoires were left by people who were involved in Tulchyn life in different ways: a traveler who stayed for a short time (G. Gerakov), the officers of the Second Army passing by on their way to their duty station or on vacation (V. Gorchakov, F. Luginin), N. Pavlischev who was serving some time in Tulchyn. These records show the everyday life of the officers of the ‘Headquarters Society’ (some of them were also members of the Secret Society), their occupation and discussions, relationships with their commanders (first of all with the headquarters commander general P. Kiselev) and make judgment about the level of distribution of P. Pestel’s works in Tulchyn and the debates about them. The autor concludes conclusion remarks that the circle of possible sources about the everyday life of the Tulchyn headquarters is far from being exhausted. The potential of the documents from the fonds of the Second Army General Headquarters is exceptionally great. These documents are held in the Russian State Military Historical Archive.