The true story of Pavlik Morozov (1 photo). Pavlik Morozov is brief and clear - the most important thing

His name became a household name and was used in politics and propaganda. Who was Pavlik Morozov really?
He twice became a victim of political propaganda: during the Soviet era, he was presented as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and during perestroika, as an informer who betrayed his own father. Modern historians have questioned both myths about Pavlik Morozov, who became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.

Portrait of Pavlik Morozov, based on the only known photograph of him

The house where Pavlik Morozov lived, 1950

This story took place at the beginning of September 1932 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. The grandmother sent her grandchildren to pick cranberries, and a few days later the brothers’ bodies with signs of violent death were found in the forest. Fedor was 8 years old, Pavel was 14. According to the canonical version generally accepted in the USSR, Pavlik Morozov was the organizer of the first pioneer detachment in his village, and in the midst of the fight against the kulaks, he denounced his father, who collaborated with the kulaks.

As a result, Trofim Morozov was sent into 10-year exile, and according to other sources, he was shot in 1938.

Pavlik only confirmed his mother’s testimony that Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council, sold certificates to the displaced kulaks about registration with the village council and about the absence of tax debts to the state. These certificates were in the hands of the security officers, and Trofim Morozov would have been tried even without his son’s testimony. He and several other district leaders were arrested and sent to prison.

N. Chebakov. Pavlik Morozov, 1952

Relations in the Morozov family were difficult. Pavlik’s grandfather was a gendarme, and his grandmother was a horse thief. They met in prison, where he was guarding her. Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, had a scandalous reputation: he was a reveler, cheated on his wife and, as a result, left her with four children. The chairman of the village council was indeed dishonest - all his fellow villagers knew that he made money on fictitious certificates and embezzled the property of dispossessed people.

There was no political subtext in Pavlik’s action - he simply supported his mother, who was unfairly offended by her father. And my grandmother and grandfather hated both him and his mother for this. Moreover, when Trofim left his wife, according to the law, his plot of land passed to his eldest son Pavel, since the family was left without a livelihood. Having killed the heir, the relatives could count on the return of the land.

Relatives who were accused of murdering Pavlik Morozov

An investigation began immediately after the murder. In the grandfather's house they found bloody clothes and a knife with which the children were stabbed to death. During interrogations, Pavel’s grandfather and cousin confessed to the crime they had committed: the grandfather allegedly held Pavel while Danila stabbed him. The case had a very big resonance. This murder was presented in the press as an act of kulak terror against a member of the pioneer organization. Pavlik Morozov was immediately proclaimed a pioneer hero.

Pavlik Morozov - pioneer hero in the era of the USSR

Collectivization took place with great difficulties; the pioneer organization was poorly received in the country. In order to change people's attitudes, new heroes and new legends were needed. Therefore, Pavlik was just a puppet of the security officers who were trying to arrange a show trial.

Yuri Druzhnikov and his acclaimed book about Pavlik Morozov

However, this version caused widespread criticism and was crushed. In 1999, the Morozovs' relatives and representatives of the Memorial movement achieved a review of this case in court, but the Prosecutor General's Office came to the conclusion that the murderers were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds.

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the Sverdlovsk region, 1968. Pavlik’s mother Tatyana Morozova with her grandson Pavel, 1979

Pioneers visit the site of the death of Pavlik Morozov, 1968

Writer Vladimir Bushin is confident that it was a family drama without any political overtones. In his opinion, the boy was counting only on the fact that his father would be intimidated and returned to the family, and could not foresee the consequences of his actions. He only thought about helping his mother and brothers, since he was the eldest son.

The school where Pavlik Morozov studied, and now there is a museum named after him

In the Pavlik Morozov Museum

No matter how the story of Pavlik Morozov is interpreted, his fate does not become any less tragic. His death served as a symbol for the Soviet government of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals, and during the perestroika era it was used to discredit this government.

Monuments to Pavlik Morozov

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the city of Ostrov, Pskov region

For those who don’t remember who Pavlik Morozov is, we offer the official version of those events .

7 August 2017, 10:06

Pavlik Morozov was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Turin district, Tobolsk province, to Trofim Sergeevich Morozov and Tatyana Semyonovna Baidakova. My father was an ethnic Belarusian and came from Stolypin settlers who settled in Gerasimovka in 1910. Pavlik was the eldest of five children, he had four brothers: Georgy (died in infancy), Fedor (born approximately 1924), Roman and Alexey.

Pavlik's father was the chairman of the Gerasimovsky village council until 1931. According to the recollections of Gerasimovites, soon after taking this position, Trofim Morozov began to use it for personal gain, which is mentioned in detail in the criminal case filed against him subsequently. According to witness testimony, Trofim began to appropriate for himself things confiscated from the dispossessed. In addition, he speculated on certificates issued to special settlers.

Soon, Pavel’s father abandoned his family (his wife and four children) and began cohabiting with a woman who lived next door, Antonina Amosova. According to the recollections of Pavel’s teacher, his father regularly beat his wife and children both before and after leaving the family. Pavlik’s grandfather also hated his daughter-in-law because she did not want to live in the same household with him, but insisted on a division. According to Alexei (Paul's brother), father “I loved only myself and vodka”, did not spare his wife and sons, not like other immigrants from whom “I tore three skins for forms with stamps”. The father’s parents also treated the family abandoned by their father to the mercy of fate: “Grandfather and grandmother were also strangers to us for a long time. They never treated me to anything or greeted me. My grandfather didn’t let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, all we heard was: “You’ll get by without a letter, you’ll be the owner, and Tatyana’s puppies will be your farmhands.”.

In 1931, the father, who no longer held office, was sentenced to 10 years for “being the chairman of the village council, he was friends with the kulaks, sheltered their farms from taxation, and upon leaving the village council, he contributed to the escape of special settlers by selling documents”. He was charged with issuing false certificates to dispossessed people about their membership in the Gerasimovsky village council, which gave them the opportunity to leave their place of exile. Trofim Morozov, while in prison, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and, after working for three years, returned home with an order for shock work, and then settled in Tyumen.

According to Pavlik Morozov’s teacher L.P. Isakova, cited by Veronica Kononenko, Pavlik’s mother was “pretty-faced and very kind”. After the murder of her sons, Tatyana Morozova left the village and, fearing a meeting with her ex-husband, for many years did not dare to visit her native place. Ultimately, after World War II, she settled in Alupka, where she died in 1983. According to one version, Pavlik’s younger brother Roman died at the front during the war; according to another, he survived, but became disabled and died shortly after its end. Alexey became the only child of the Morozovs who got married: from different marriages he had two sons - Denis and Pavel. Having divorced his first wife, he moved to his mother in Alupka, where he tried not to talk about his relationship with Pavlik, and spoke about him only in the late 1980s, when a campaign of persecution against Pavlik began at the height of Perestroika

LIFE

Pavel’s teacher recalled poverty in the village of Gerasimovka:

The school she was in charge of worked in two shifts. At that time we had no idea about radio or electricity; in the evenings we sat by a torch and saved kerosene. There was no ink either; they wrote with beet juice. Poverty in general was appalling. When we, teachers, started going from house to house to enroll children in school, it turned out that many of them didn’t have any clothes. The children were sitting naked on the beds, covering themselves with some rags. The kids climbed into the oven and warmed themselves in the ash. We organized a reading hut, but there were almost no books, and local newspapers arrived very rarely. To some now Pavlik seems like a boy in clean clothes stuffed with slogans. pioneer uniform. And because of our poverty this form I didn’t even see it.

Forced to provide for his family in such difficult conditions, Pavel nevertheless invariably showed a desire to learn. According to his teacher L.P. Isakova:

He was very eager to learn, he borrowed books from me, but he had no time to read, and he often missed lessons because of work in the fields and housework. Then I tried to catch up, I did well, and I also taught my mother to read and write...

After his father left for another woman, all the worries about the peasant farm fell on Pavel - he became the eldest man in the Morozov family.

Murder of Pavlik and his younger brother Fyodor

Pavlik and his younger brother went into the forest to pick berries. They were found dead from stab wounds. From the indictment:

Morozov Pavel, being a pioneer throughout the current year, led a devoted, active struggle against the class enemy, the kulaks and their subkulakists, spoke at public meetings, exposed kulak tricks and stated this repeatedly...

Pavel had a very difficult relationship with his father's relatives. M.E. Chulkova describes the following episode:

…One day Danila hit Pavel’s hand with a shaft so hard that it began to swell. Mother Tatyana Semyonovna stood between them, and Danila hit her in the face so that blood came out of her mouth. The grandmother came running and shouted:

Kill this snotty communist!

Let's skin them! - Danila yelled...

On September 2, Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, planning to spend the night there (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell a calf). On September 6, Dmitry Shatrakov found their corpses in an aspen forest.

The brothers' mother describes the events of these days in a conversation with the investigator as follows:

On September 2, I left for Tavda, and on September 3, Pavel and Fyodor went into the forest to pick berries. I returned on the 5th and found out that Pasha and Fedya had not returned from the forest. I began to worry and turned to a policeman, who gathered people, and people went into the forest to look for my children. They were soon found stabbed to death.

My middle son Alexey, he is 11 years old, said that on September 3rd he saw Danila walking very quickly out of the forest, and our dog was running after him. Alexey asked if he had seen Pavel and Fyodor, to which Danila did not answer anything and only laughed. He was dressed in homespun pants and a black shirt - Alexey remembered this well. It was these pants and shirt that were found on Sergei Sergeevich Morozov during the search.

I cannot help but note that on September 6, when my slaughtered children were brought from the forest, grandmother Aksinya met me on the street and said with a grin: “Tatiana, we made you meat, and now you eat it!”

The first act of examining the bodies, drawn up by local police officer Yakov Titov, in the presence of the paramedic of the Gorodishchevo medical post P. Makarov, witnesses Pyotr Ermakov, Abraham Knigi and Ivan Barkin, reports that:

Pavel Morozov lay 10 meters from the road, with his head to the east. There is a red bag on his head. Pavel was dealt a fatal blow to the stomach. The second blow was delivered to the chest near the heart, under which there were scattered cranberries. One basket stood near Paul, the other was thrown aside. His shirt is torn in two places, and there is a purple blood stain on his back. Hair color is light brown, face is white, eyes are blue, open, mouth closed. There are two birch trees at the feet (...) The corpse of Fyodor Morozov was located fifteen meters from Pavel in a swamp and shallow aspen forest. Fedor was hit in the left temple with a stick, his right cheek was stained with blood. The knife dealt a fatal blow to the abdomen above the navel, where the intestines came out, and also cut the arm with a knife to the bone.

The second inspection report, made by the city paramedic Markov after washing the bodies, states that:

Pavel Morozov has one superficial wound measuring 4 centimeters on the chest on the right side in the area of the 5-6th rib, a second superficial wound in the epigastric region, a third wound from the left side in the stomach, subcostal area measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and the fourth wound on the right side (from the Poupart ligament) measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and death followed. In addition, a large wound 6 centimeters long was inflicted on the left hand, along the metacarpus of the thumb.

Pavel and Fyodor Morozov were buried at the Gerasimovka cemetery. An obelisk with a red star was erected on the grave hill, and a cross was buried next to it with the inscription: “On September 3, 1932, two Morozov brothers died from the evil of a man from a sharp knife - Pavel Trofimovich, born in 1918, and Fyodor Trofimovich.”

Trial of the murder of Pavlik Morozov

During the investigation of the murder, its close connection with the previous case against Pavlik’s father, Trofim Morozov, became clear.

Pavel testified at the preliminary investigation, confirming his mother’s words that his father beat his mother and brought into the house things received as payment for issuing false documents (one of the researchers, Yuri Druzhnikov, suggests that Pavel could not have seen this, because his father had not been married for a long time lived with his family). According to Druzhnikov, in the murder case it is noted that “On November 25, 1931, Pavel Morozov submitted a statement to the investigative authorities that his father Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council and being associated with local kulaks, was engaged in forging documents and selling them to kulaks - special settlers." The statement was related to the investigation into the case of a false certificate issued by the Gerasimovsky village council to a special settler; he allowed Trofim to be involved in the case. Trofim Morozov was arrested and tried in February of the following year.

In fact, in the indictment for the murder of the Morozovs, investigator Elizar Vasilyevich Shepelev stated that “Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigative authorities on November 25, 1931.” In an interview with journalist Veronica Kononenko and senior justice adviser Igor Titov, Shepelev said:

I can’t understand why on earth I wrote all this; there is no evidence in the case file that the boy contacted the investigative authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. I probably meant that Pavel gave evidence to the judge when Trofim was tried... It turns out that because of my inaccurately written words the boy is now accused of informing?! But is it a crime to help the investigation or act as a witness in court? And is it possible to blame a person for anything because of one phrase?

Trofim Morozov and other village council chairmen were arrested on November 26 and 27, the day after the “denunciation.” Based on the results of a journalistic investigation by Evgenia Medyakova, published in the Ural magazine in 1982, it was found that Pavel Morozov was not involved in his father’s arrest. On November 22, 1931, a certain Zvorykin was detained at the Tavda station. He was found to have two blank forms with stamps from the Gerasimovsky Village Council, for which, according to him, he paid 105 rubles. The certificate attached to the case states that before his arrest Trofim was no longer the chairman of the village council, but “the clerk of the Gorodishche general store.” Medyakova also writes that “Tavda and Gerasimovka have more than once received requests from the construction of Magnitogorsk, from many factories, factories and collective farms about whether the citizens (a number of names) are really residents of Gerasimovka.” Consequently, verification of holders of false certificates began. “And most importantly, Medyakova did not find the boy’s testimony in the investigative case! Tatyana Semyonovna’s testimony is there, but Pavlik’s is not! Because he did not make any “statements to the investigative authorities!”

Pavel, following his mother, spoke in court, but in the end was stopped by the judge due to his youth. In the case of Morozov’s murder it is said: “During the trial, son Pavel outlined all the details about his father, his tricks.” The speech delivered by Pavlik is known in 12 versions, mostly dating back to the book by journalist Pyotr Solomein. In a recording from the archive of Solomein himself, this accusatory speech is conveyed as follows:

Uncles, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say about this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October, but is trying in every possible way to help the kulak escape, he stood up for him like a mountain, and I, not as a son, but as a pioneer, ask that my father be brought to justice , because in the future I will not give others the habit of hiding the kulak and clearly violating the party line, and I will also add that my father will now appropriate kulak property, took the bed of the kulukanov Arseny Kulukanov (husband of T. Morozov’s sister and Pavel’s godfather) and wanted to take it from him a haystack, but Kulukanov’s fist did not give him the hay, but said, let him take it better...

The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, the fist Arseny Kulukanov, having learned about the boys leaving to pick berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 5 rubles and asking him to invite Sergei Morozov, “with whom Kulukanov had previously conspired,” to also kill him. Having returned from Kulukanov and having finished harrowing (that is, harrowing, loosening the soil), Danila went home and conveyed the conversation to his grandfather Sergei. The latter, seeing that Danila was taking a knife, left the house without saying a word and went with Danila, telling him: “Let’s go kill, don’t be afraid.” Having found the children, Danila, without saying a word, took out a knife and hit Pavel; Fedya rushed to run, but was detained by Sergei and also stabbed to death by Danila. " After making sure that Fedya was dead, Danila returned to Pavel and stabbed him several more times with a knife.».

The murder of Morozov was widely publicized as a manifestation of kulak terror (against a member of the pioneer organization) and served as the reason for widespread repression on an all-Union scale; in Gerasimovka itself it finally made it possible to organize a collective farm (before that, all attempts were thwarted by the peasants). In Tavda, in the club named after Stalin, a show trial of the alleged murderers took place. At the trial, Danila Morozov confirmed all the charges; Sergei Morozov behaved contradictorily, either confessing or denying guilt. All other defendants denied guilt. The main evidence was a utility knife found on Sergei Morozov, and Danila’s bloody clothes, soaked but not washed by Ksenia (allegedly, Danila had previously slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova).

The Ural Worker correspondent V. Mor presented the version of the prosecution as generally accepted. In addition, a similar version was put forward in an article by Vitaly Gubarev in Pionerskaya Pravda.

Verdict of the Ural Regional Court

By the decision of the Ural Regional Court, their own grandfather Sergei (father of Trofim Morozov) and 19-year-old cousin Danil, as well as grandmother Ksenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel’s godfather Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle, were found guilty of the murder of Pavel Morozov and his brother Fyodor (as a village kulak - as the initiator and organizer of the murder). After the trial, Arseniy Kulukanov and Danila Morozov were shot, eighty-year-old Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison. Pavlik’s other uncle, Arseny Silin, was also accused of complicity in the murder, but he was acquitted during the trial.

According to the statements of the writer Yuri Druzhnikov, who published the book “Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” in the UK in 1987, many circumstances related to the life of Pavel Morozov are distorted by propaganda and are controversial

In particular, Druzhnikov questions the idea that Pavlik Morozov was a pioneer. According to Druzhnikov, he was declared a pioneer almost immediately after his death (the latter, according to Druzhnikov, was important for the investigation, as it brought his murder under the article of political terror).

Druzhnikov claims that by testifying against his father, Pavlik deserved to be in the village "universal hatred"; they began to call him “Pashka the Kumanist” (communist). Druzhnikov considers the official statements that Pavel actively helped identify "bread squeezers", those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet regime, etc. According to the author, according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not "a serious informer", because “reporting is, you know, a serious job, but he was such a nit, a petty dirty trick”. According to Druzhnikov, only two such cases were documented in the murder case. "denunciation".

He considers the behavior of the alleged murderers illogical, who did not take any measures to hide traces of the crime (they did not drown the corpses in the swamp, throwing them near the road; they did not wash bloody clothes in time; they did not clean the knife from traces of blood, putting it in the place where they look first during a search). All this is especially strange, considering that Morozov’s grandfather was a gendarme in the past, and his grandmother was a professional horse thief

According to Druzhnikov, the murder was the result of a provocation by the OGPU, organized with the participation of assistant commissioner of the OGPU Spiridon Kartashov and Pavel’s cousin - informant Ivan Potupchik. In this regard, the author describes a document that, according to him, he discovered in the materials of case No. 374 (about the murder of the Morozov brothers). This paper was drawn up by Kartashov and represents the protocol of the interrogation of Potupchik as a witness in the case of the murder of Pavel and Fedor. The document is dated September 4, that is, according to the date, it was drawn up two days before the discovery of the corpses.

According to Yuri Druzhnikov, expressed in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

There was no investigation. The corpses were ordered to be buried before the arrival of the investigator without an examination. Journalists also sat on stage as prosecutors, talking about the political importance of shooting kulaks. The lawyer accused his clients of murder and left amid applause. Different sources report different methods of murder, the prosecutor and the judge were confused about the facts. The murder weapon was a knife found in the house with traces of blood, but Danila was cutting a calf that day - no one checked whose blood it was. The accused grandfather, grandmother, uncle and cousin of Pavlik Danila tried to say that they were beaten and tortured. The shooting of innocent people in November 1932 was the signal for massacres of peasants throughout the country.

After the release of Druzhnikov’s book, Veronica Kononenko spoke in the newspaper “Soviet Russia” and the magazine “Man and Law” with harsh criticism of this literary investigation, assessing Druzhnikov’s book as slanderous and full of fraudulently collected information. In support, she cited a letter from Alexei Morozov, the brother of the late Pavel Morozov, according to which Pavel’s teacher Z. A. Kabin wanted to sue Druzhnikov in an international court for distorting her memories.

What kind of trial was held over my brother? It's a shame and scary. The magazine called my brother an informer. This is a lie! Pavel always fought openly. Why is he being insulted? Has our family suffered little grief? Who is being bullied? Two of my brothers were killed. The third, Roman, came from the front as an invalid and died young. During the war I was slandered as an enemy of the people. He served ten years in a camp. And then they rehabilitated. And now the slander against Pavlik. How to withstand all this? They doomed me to torture worse than in the camps. It’s good that my mother didn’t live to see these days... I’m writing, but the tears are choking me. It seems that Pashka is again standing defenseless on the road. ...The editor of "Ogonyok" Korotich on the radio station "Svoboda" said that my brother is a son of a bitch, which means that my mother is too... Yuri Izrailevich Alperovich-Druzhnikov got into our family, drank tea with his mother, sympathized with us, and then published London, a vile book - a clot of such disgusting lies and slander that, after reading it, I had a second heart attack. Z. A. Kabina also fell ill, she kept wanting to sue the author in international court, but where could she - Alperovich lives in Texas and chuckles - try to get him, the teacher’s pension is not enough. Chapters from the book “The Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” by this scribbler have been replicated by many newspapers and magazines, no one takes my protests into account, no one needs the truth about my brother... Apparently, there’s only one thing left for me to do - pour gasoline on myself, and that’s the end of it!

Druzhnikov’s words contradict the memories of Pavel’s first teacher, Larisa Pavlovna Isakova: “I didn’t have time to organize the pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then; Zoya Kabina created it after me. One day I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it on Pavel, and he ran home joyfully. And at home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. [..] The commune fell apart, and my husband was beaten half to death by fists. Ustinya Potupchik saved me and warned me that Kulakanov and his company were going to be killed. [..] It’s probably since then that Pavlik hated Kulakanova; he was the first to join the pioneers when the detachment was organized.. Journalist V.P. Kononenko, with reference to Pavel Morozov’s teacher Zoya Kabina, confirms that “it was she who created the first pioneer detachment in the village, which was headed by Pavel Morozov”

According to an article by Vladimir Bushin in the newspaper Zavtra, Druzhnikov’s version that the killers were “a certain Kartashev and Potupchik,” the first of whom was an “OGPU detective,” is slanderous. Bushin refers to Veronica Kononenko, who found “Spiridon Nikitich Kartashov himself” and Pavel Morozov’s brother, Alexey. Pointing out that Druzhnikov’s real name is Alperovich, Bushin claims that in addition to using the “beautiful Russian pseudonym Druzhnikov,” he “ingratiated himself into the trust” of Pavel Morozov’s former teacher Larisa Pavlovna Isakova, using another name - his editorial colleague I.M. Achildieva. Along with asserting Kartashov’s non-involvement in the OGPU, Bushin accuses Alperovich-Druzhnikov of deliberate distortions and manipulation of facts to suit his views and beliefs.

In 2005, Oxford University professor Catriona Kelly published Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero. Dr Kelly argued in the ensuing controversy that "although there are traces of silence and concealment of minor facts by OGPU workers, there is no reason to believe that the murder itself was provoked by them.”

Yuri Druzhnikov stated that Kelly used his work not only in acceptable references, but also by repeating the composition of the book, the selection of details, and descriptions. In addition, Dr. Kelly, according to Druzhnikov, came to the exact opposite conclusion about the role of the OGPU-NKVD in the murder of Pavlik.

According to Dr. Kelly, Mr. Druzhnikov considered Soviet official materials unreliable, but used them when it was beneficial to bolster his case. According to Catriona Kelly, Druzhnikov published, instead of a scientific presentation of criticism of her book, a “denunciation” with the assumption of Kelly’s connection with the “organs.” Dr. Kelly did not find much difference between the books' conclusions and attributed some of Mr. Druzhnikov's criticisms to his lack of knowledge of the English language and English culture.

Investigation of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, personal inquiries of Alexander Liskin

Alexander Alekseevich Liskin took part in an additional investigation of the case in 1967 and requested murder case No. N-7825-66 from the archives of the KGB of the USSR. In an article published between 1998 and 2001, Liskin pointed out the “massacre” and “falsification” with sides of Inspector Titov, revealed during the investigation. In 1995, Liskin requested official certificates about the alleged criminal record of Pavlik’s father, but the internal affairs bodies of the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions did not find such information. Liskin suggested checking the “secret corners of dusty archives” to find the real killers of the Morozov brothers.

Liskin agreed with the arguments of the editor of the department of the magazine “Man and Law” Veronica Kononenko regarding the witness nature of Pavlik’s speech at his father’s trial and the absence of secret denunciations.

e with the materials of additional verification of case No. 374 was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which decided to deny rehabilitation to the alleged killers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fedor.

Opinions on the Supreme Court decision

According to Boris Sopelnyak, “at the height of perestroika hysteria [..] the so-called ideologists who were allowed in to the dollar trough tried most of all [to knock out love for the Motherland from young people].” According to Sopelnyak, the Prosecutor General's Office carefully reviewed the case.

According to Maura Reynolds, Matryona Shatrakova died three months before the Supreme Court's decision arrived in 2001, and the postman refused to give the decision to her daughter.

Who is Pavel Morozov, a hero or a traitor?

The story of Pavel Morozov is well known to people of the older generation. This boy was included in the ranks of pioneer heroes who performed feats for the sake of their country and people and entered the legends of Soviet times.

According to the official version, Pavlik Morozov, who sincerely believed in the idea of socialism, reported to the OGPU about how his father was helping kulaks and bandits. Morozov Sr. was arrested and convicted. But his son paid for his deed and was killed by his father’s relatives.

What is true in this story and what is fiction of propaganda, unfortunately, has not yet been figured out. Who, in reality, was Pavel Morozov, and what was actually done?

Biography of Pavlik Morozov

Pavel Trofimovich Morozov was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district of the Ural region. His father, Trofim Morozov, became chairman of the village council of his native village. It was a difficult time.

Back in 1921, the villagers of Central Russia started a revolt, rebelling against the Bolshevik surplus appropriation system, which was taking away the last grain for the proletarians.

Those of the rebels who survived the battles went to the Urals or were convicted. Some were shot, others were given amnesty a few years later. Two years later, five people, the Purtov brothers, who played their role in Pavel’s tragedy, also came under amnesty.

The boy's father, when Pavlik reached the age of ten, left his wife and children, leaving for another family. This event forced young Morozov to become the head of the family, taking upon himself all the worries about his relatives.

Knowing that the only shield for the poor was the power of the councils, with the onset of the 30s, Pavel joined the ranks of the pioneer organization. At the same time, my father, having taken a leading position in the village council, began to actively collaborate with kulak elements and the Purtov gang. This is where the story of Pavlik Morozov’s feat begins.

Feat (USSR version)

The Purtovs, having organized a gang in the forests, engaged in robbery in the surrounding area. They have only 20 proven robberies on their conscience. Also, according to the OGPU, five brothers were preparing a local coup against the Soviets, relying on special settlers (kulaks). Trofim Morozov provided active assistance to them. The chairman provided them with document forms, issuing fake certificates of poverty.

In those years, such certificates were an analogue of a passport and gave bandits a quiet life and legal residence. According to these documents, the bearer of the paper was considered a peasant of Gerasimovka and did not owe anything to the state. Pavel, who fully and sincerely supported the Bolsheviks, reported his father's actions to the competent authorities. His father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years.

Pavlik paid for this report by losing his life, and his younger brother Fedora was deprived of his life. While picking berries in the forest, they were stabbed to death by their own relatives. At the end of the investigation, four were convicted of murder: Sergei Morozov - paternal grandfather, Ksenia Morozova - grandmother, Danila Morozov - cousin, Arseny Kulukanov - Pavel’s godfather and his uncle.

Kulukanov and Danila were shot, grandfather and grandmother died in custody. The fifth suspect, Arseny Silin, was acquitted.

Interesting facts (new version)

After all these events, Pavlik Morozov took first place in the future numerous series of pioneer heroes. But over time, historians began to ask questions and question facts that were considered indisputable. By the beginning of the 90s, people appeared who called the boy not a hero, but a traitor and an informer. One version says that Morozov Jr. tried not for the sake of Bolshevik power, but following the persuasion of his mother. According to this version, she persuaded her son to commit a slander, offended that her husband abandoned her with the children. This option is not relevant; my father still helped his family a little, supporting them financially.

Another interesting fact is the documents of the OGPU. According to some of them, denunciation was not necessary. The authorities had evidence of Trofim Morozov’s participation in the gang’s activities. And Pavlik acted only as a witness in his father’s case. The boy was threatened with an article for complicity! His father, as was not surprising at the time, was illiterate. And Pavel wrote out those same certificates in his own hand, on pieces of paper from student notebooks. These sheets are present in the archives, but he remained only a witness, assuring these facts to the OGPU employees.

Another point is controversial. Was the first pioneer hero even among the pioneers? It is definitely difficult to answer this question. In the thirties, there was still no document in use certifying one’s membership in the pioneers of the Soviet Union. Also, no evidence of Pavlik Morozov’s membership in the pioneer community was found in the archives. The pioneers of the village of Gerasimovka are known only from the words of school teacher Zoya Kabina.

Trofim Morozov, Pavlik’s father, was locked up for ten years. But, according to some reports, he was released three years later for successful work on the White Sea Canal, and was even awarded. This is hard to believe. Other versions are more plausible. One of them says that the former chairman was shot in 1938. But there is no confirmation of such an event either. The most common opinion is that the elder Morozov served his sentence and left for the Tyumen region. There he lived out his years, keeping his family connection with his famous son secret.

This is the story of Pavlik Morozov, who became the first pioneer hero. Subsequently, the Soviet government was accused of false propaganda, denying or distorting the events of those distant times. But everyone is free to draw their own conclusions and determine their attitude towards those old matters.

What is the real story of Pavlik Morozov? August 22nd, 2017

Many people mention it very often, but often know very little. And even if they do know, it’s not a fact that it’s true.

He twice became a victim of political propaganda: during the Soviet era, he was presented as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and during perestroika, as an informer who betrayed his own father.

Modern historians have questioned both myths about Pavlik Morozov, who became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.

The house where Pavlik Morozov lived, 1950

This story took place at the beginning of September 1932 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. The grandmother sent her grandchildren to pick cranberries, and a few days later the brothers’ bodies with signs of violent death were found in the forest. Fedor was 8 years old, Pavel - 14. According to the canonical version generally accepted in the USSR, Pavlik Morozov was the organizer of the first pioneer detachment in his village, and in the midst of the fight against the kulaks, he denounced his father, who collaborated with the kulaks. As a result, Trofim Morozov was sent into 10-year exile, and according to other sources, he was shot in 1938.

In fact, Pavlik was not a pioneer - a pioneer organization appeared in their village only a month after his murder. The tie was later simply added to his portrait. He did not write any denunciations against his father. His ex-wife testified against Trofim at the trial. Pavlik only confirmed his mother’s testimony that Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council, sold certificates to the displaced kulaks about registration with the village council and about the absence of tax debts to the state. These certificates were in the hands of the security officers, and Trofim Morozov would have been tried even without his son’s testimony. He and several other district leaders were arrested and sent to prison.

N. Chebakov. Pavlik Morozov, 1952

Relations in the Morozov family were difficult. Pavlik's grandfather was a gendarme, and his grandmother was a horse thief. They met in prison, where he was guarding her. Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, had a scandalous reputation: he was a reveler, cheated on his wife and, as a result, left her with four children. The chairman of the village council was indeed dishonest - all his fellow villagers knew that he made money on fictitious certificates and appropriated the property of the dispossessed. There was no political subtext in Pavlik’s action - he simply supported his mother, who was unfairly offended by her father. And my grandmother and grandfather hated both him and his mother for this. Moreover, when Trofim left his wife, according to the law, his plot of land passed to his eldest son Pavel, since the family was left without a livelihood. Having killed the heir, the relatives could count on the return of the land.

Relatives who were accused of murdering Pavlik Morozov

Only many years later, many details began to raise questions: why, for example, Pavel’s grandfather, a former gendarme, did not get rid of the murder weapon and traces of the crime. Writer, historian and journalist Yuri Druzhnikov (aka Alperovich) put forward the version that Pavlik Morozov denounced his father on behalf of his mother - to take revenge on his father, and was killed by an OGPU agent in order to cause mass repressions and the expulsion of kulaks - this was the logical conclusion of the story about villainous kulaks who are ready to kill children for their own benefit. Collectivization took place with great difficulties; the pioneer organization was poorly received in the country. In order to change people's attitudes, new heroes and new legends were needed. Therefore, Pavlik was just a puppet of the security officers who were trying to arrange a show trial.

Yuri Druzhnikov and his acclaimed book about Pavlik Morozov

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the Sverdlovsk region, 1968. Pavlik’s mother Tatyana Morozova with her grandson Pavel, 1979

Pioneers visit the site of the death of Pavlik Morozov, 1968

The school where Pavlik Morozov studied, and now there is a museum named after him

In the Pavlik Morozov Museum

Monuments to Pavlik Morozov

Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the city of Ostrov, Pskov region

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Many people mention it very often, but often know very little. And even if they do know, it’s not a fact that it’s true. He twice became a victim of political propaganda: during the Soviet era, he was presented as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and during perestroika, as an informer who betrayed his own father.
Modern historians have questioned both myths about Pavlik Morozov, who became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.

The main attraction of the village of Gerasimovka, Sverdlovsk region. - museum and grave of Pavlik Morozov. Up to 3 thousand people come here a year. And everyone is almost ready to tell how it all happened, so much is this image imprinted in our consciousness...

The story of the murder of Pavlik Morozov has become overgrown with a lot of myths over the past 80 years, but until recently there were two main versions. According to one of them, Pavlik wrote a denunciation against his father, a kulak, and then against other kulaks who were hiding grain from the state. His grandfather and uncle did not forgive him for this, they waylaid him and his brother Fedya in the forest and stabbed him to death. A show trial was held against the children's grandfather, uncle and relatives. Some were accused of murder, others of concealing a crime. The sentences are the death penalty or long prison terms.

According to another version, Pavlik was killed by OGPU officers: supposedly the system needed a hero to justify the repressions. The child killed by fists was perfect for this role.

Meanwhile, the director of the Pavlik Morozov Museum, Nina Kupratsevich, told us her version of this story. After many years of research, work with archival documents, meetings with Pavlik’s relatives, Nina Ivanovna is absolutely sure: the boy did not betray any of his relatives and it was not his relatives or OGPU employees who killed him, but completely different people.
In this whole tragic story, the figure of the father is very important - Trofim Sergeevich Morozov. According to Kupratsevich, in fact he was a competent, respected person in the village, otherwise he simply would not have been elected as chairman of the village council. What Trofim was later accused of would today be called corruption. He illegally issued registration certificates to dispossessed peasants and their families exiled to Gerasimovka. Without them they had no right to leave the village. People worked in logging fields, starved, died, and many wanted to leave. Of course, at that time it was considered a crime, but, in essence, Trofim Morozov saved people. A criminal case was opened precisely because of forged certificates: two peasants were detained with them at the station in Tavda...
Resentment for the mother.

Kupratsevich believes that an illiterate thirteen-year-old boy could not “mortgage” his father. At the time of the trial, Trofim had already left the family, lived with his partner for a long time, and his son was simply not aware of his affairs. Secondly, small, thin Pavlik stuttered and simply could not give out that “anti-kulak” monologue that Soviet propagandists attributed to him. And this monologue sounded like this (according to the version of the writer Pavel Solomein): “Uncle judges, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say about this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October, but is trying in every possible way to help the kulak escape, he stood for him like a mountain, and I, not as a son, but as a pioneer, ask that my father be brought to justice, because in the future we will not give others the habit of hiding their fists and clearly violating the party line...”

[The house where Pavlik Morozov lived, 1950]

Yes, he had a reason to be offended by his father - for his mother. After all, Trofim went to a strange woman. Pashka remained the master of a family with four children; he didn’t even have time to study.
“That day Pavlik and Fedya went to the swamp to get cranberries,” Nina Kupratsevich tells her version of those events. - The Morozovs’ house was on the outskirts, and, apparently, the grandfather, later accused of murder, saw them. But then the whole village went to those places to buy cranberries! Pavlik’s grandfather, who was over 80, could not be so bad as to kill his grandson in front of possible witnesses. Didn't he realize that the children would scream? And they screamed! You read the protocol for examining the corpses: the brothers were cut with knives, their hands were wounded. Apparently, they grabbed the blades and called for help. This doesn't look like premeditated murder at all. Everything suggests that the guys were killed in a state of extreme fright. I think that these were dispossessed peasant special settlers who lived in a dugout and hid in the forest from the authorities. Fearing that the boys would betray them, they grabbed their knives...
"Participation has not been proven"

Kupratsevich also doesn’t believe in the version about the OGPU: “Do you really think that the authorities wouldn’t have found a suitable village closer to the center? How long did it take you to get to us? Three hours from Yekaterinburg? And at that time there was no direct road at all; you had to get across the river by ferry. And when the “myth-making” began, people began to be driven into the collective farm, it turned out very convenient: the fists took the lives of two little brothers. And virtually out of nowhere the image of a pioneer hero was created. Maxim Gorky himself said at the All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers: “Kind by blood, strangers by class, killed Pavlik...”
In fact, Pavlik was not a pioneer - a pioneer organization appeared in their village only a month after his murder. The tie was later simply added to his portrait.

[Pioneers visit the site of the death of Pavlik Morozov, 1968]

Meanwhile, in the late 90s, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov was purely criminal in nature, and the criminals were not subject to rehabilitation for political reasons. However, retired Colonel of Justice Alexander Liskin, who took part in the additional investigation of the case in 1967 and worked with the KGB archives, concluded in 2001: the participation of the people accused of Pavlik’s death has not been proven. Moreover, he claims that Pavlik spoke in court in his father’s case as a witness. And there are no denunciations in this matter.
By the way…

[Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the Sverdlovsk region, 1968. Pavlik’s mother Tatyana Morozova with her grandson Pavel, 1979]

The fate of Pavlik's relatives turned out differently. His godfather Arseny Kulukanov and cousin Danila were shot. Grandfather Sergei and grandmother Ksenia died in prison. Trofim Morozov received ten years in the camps, worked on the construction of the White Sea Canal, where he died. According to other information, he remained alive, was released and spent his last days somewhere in the Tyumen region. Pavlik’s brother Alexei Morozov fought at the front, but in 1943 he recklessly praised the brand of some German aircraft and served 10 years near Nizhny Tagil. “I met him. A very positive, wonderful person,” recalls Kupratsevich. Mom Tatyana Semyonovna Morozova moved to Crimea, to Alupka, where Nadezhda Krupskaya secured an apartment for her. She was given a small pension. She lived modestly and put a cross instead of a signature all her life.
P.S.

No matter how the story of Pavlik Morozov is interpreted, his fate does not become any less tragic. His death served as a symbol for the Soviet government of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals, and during the perestroika era it was used to discredit this government.