Good afternoon, Gossip Girls! Several years ago, or rather after watching the film “Admiral,” I became very interested in Kolchak’s personality. Of course, everything in the film is too “correct and beautiful”, that’s why it’s a film. In fact, there is a lot of different and contradictory information about this person, as is the case with many famous historical characters. Personally, I decided for myself that for me he is the personification of a real man, an officer and a patriot of Russia. Today marks the 138th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak - Russian politician, vice-admiral of the Russian Imperial Navy (1916) and admiral of the Siberian Flotilla (1918). Polar explorer and oceanographer, participant in expeditions of 1900-1903 (awarded by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society with the Great Constantine Medal, 1906). Participant in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars. The leader of the White movement both on a nationwide scale and directly in the East of Russia. Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920), Alexander Vasilyevich was born (4) November 16, 1874 in St. Petersburg. His father, an officer of the Naval Artillery, instilled in his son from an early age a love and interest in naval affairs and scientific pursuits. In 1888, Alexander entered the Naval Cadet Corps, which he graduated in the fall of 1894 with the rank of midshipman. He went on voyages to the Far East, the Baltic and Mediterranean seas, and participated in the scientific North Polar expedition. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he commanded a destroyer, then a coastal battery in Port Arthur. Until 1914 he served in the Naval General Staff. During the First World War he was the head of the operational department of the Baltic Fleet, then the commander of a mine division. Since July 1916 - Commander of the Black Sea Fleet. After the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, Kolchak blamed the provisional government for the collapse of the army and navy. In August, he headed the Russian naval mission to the UK and the USA, where he stayed until mid-October. In mid-October 1918, he arrived in Omsk, where he was soon appointed military and naval minister of the Government of the Directory (a bloc of right-wing Social Revolutionaries and left-wing Cadets). On November 18, as a result of a military coup, power passed into the hands of the Council of Ministers, and Kolchak was elected Supreme Ruler of Russia and promoted to full admiral. Russia's gold reserves ended up in Kolchak's hands; he received military-technical assistance from the United States and the Entente countries. By the spring of 1919, he managed to create an army with a total strength of up to 400 thousand people. The highest successes of Kolchak's armies occurred in March-April 1919, when they occupied the Urals. However, after this, defeats began. In November 1919, under the pressure of the Red Army, Kolchak left Omsk. In December, Kolchak’s train was blocked in Nizhneudinsk by the Czechoslovaks. On January 14, 1920, the Czechs hand over the admiral in exchange for free passage. On January 22, the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry began interrogations that lasted until February 6, when the remnants of Kolchak’s army came close to Irkutsk. The Revolutionary Committee issued a resolution to shoot Kolchak without trial. On February 7, 1920, Kolchak together with Prime Minister V.N. Pepelyaev was shot. Their bodies were thrown into a hole in the Hangar. To date, the burial site has not been found. Kolchak’s symbolic grave (cenotaph) is located at his “resting place in the waters of the Angara” not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where the cross is installed. Some facts about my personal life. Kolchak was married to Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak, who bore him three children. Two of whom died in infancy and the only son left was Rostislav. Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak and her son were rescued by the British and sent to France. But of course the more famous woman in Kolchak’s life is Timireva Anna Vasilievna. Kolchak and Timireva met in the house of Lieutenant Podgursky in Helsingfors. Both were not free, each had a family, both had sons. Those around them knew about the sympathies of the admiral and Timireva, but no one dared to talk about it out loud. Anna's husband was silent, and Kolchak's wife did not say anything. Maybe they thought that everything would change soon, that time would help. After all, the lovers did not see each other for a long time - months, and once a whole year. Alexander Vasilyevich took her glove with him everywhere, and in his cabin there hung a photo of Anna Vasilyevna in Russian costume. "...I spend hours looking at your photograph, which stands in front of me. On it is your sweet smile, with which I associate ideas about the morning dawn, about happiness and the joy of life. Maybe that’s why, my guardian angel, things are going well are going well,” wrote Admiral Anna Vasilievna. She confessed her love to him first. "I told him I loved him." And he, who had been hopelessly in love for a long time and, as it seemed to him, answered: “I didn’t tell you that I love you.” - “No, I’m saying this: I always want to see you, I always think about you, it’s such a joy for me to see you.” “I love you more than anything”... In 1918, Timireva announced to her husband her intention to “always be close to Alexander Vasilyevich” and was soon officially divorced. By this time, Kolchak’s wife Sophia had already been living in exile for several years. After this, Anna Vasilievna considered herself Kolchak’s common-law wife. They stayed together for less than two years - until January 1920. When the admiral was arrested, she followed him to prison. Anna Timireva, a twenty-six-year-old young woman who, having self-arrested, demanded that the prison governors give Alexander Kolchak the necessary things and medicine, since he was sick. They did not stop writing letters... Almost until the very end, Kolchak and Timireva addressed each other as “You” and by their first and patronymic names: “Anna Vasilievna”, “Alexander Vasilyevich”. In Anna’s letters, she only breaks out once: “Sasha.” A few hours before the execution, Kolchak wrote her a note, which never reached the addressee: “My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your affection and concern for me... Don’t worry about me. I feel better, my colds are passing. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I think only about you and your fate... I don’t worry about myself - everything is known in advance. My every move is being watched, and it is very difficult for me to write... Write to me. Yours Notes are the only joy I can have. I pray for you and bow to your sacrifice. My dear, my beloved, do not worry about me and take care of yourself... Goodbye, I kiss your hands." After the death of Kolchak, Anna Vasilievna lived for another 55 years. She spent the first forty years of this period in prisons and camps, from which she was occasionally released into the wild for a short time. Until the last years of her life, Anna Vasilyevna wrote poems, among which there is this: I can’t accept half a century, Nothing can help, And you still leave again On that fateful night. And I am condemned to go, Until the time passes , And the paths of well-trodden roads are confused, But if I am still alive, In defiance of fate, It is only as your love And the memory of you.
An interesting fact is that Anna Vasilievna worked as an etiquette consultant on the set of Sergei Bondarchuk’s film “War and Peace,” which was released in 1966.

On October 9, the film “Admiral” will be released on Russian cinema screens. The film tells about the last years of the life of one of the most prominent figures in the history of the early twentieth century - the legendary admiral Alexander Kolchak.

The disgraced White Guard admiral, who devoted his entire life to serving the fatherland, could in fact become the pride of Russia, but the revolution made his name forgotten for almost a century.

“Don’t spread any news about Kolchak, don’t print absolutely anything...” wrote Lenin on the eve of the admiral’s execution. His order was carried out throughout almost the entire twentieth century - the country forgot about the outstanding naval commander of the First World War, about the polar explorer who determined the science of the sea for almost half a century.

The name of Alexander Kolchak was rehabilitated relatively recently. Biographers and documentarians again became interested in his personality. However, information about the commander of the Black Sea Fleet had to be collected literally bit by bit: from a few archival documents, interrogation transcripts and letters, several dozen of which were sent to Anna Timireva in the period 1916-1920, who became the common-law wife of Alexander Kolchak in 1918.

Before the revolution

Kolchak grew up in a military family; his father was a naval artillery officer. At the age of fourteen he entered the naval cadet corps, where he immediately attracted attention. “Kolchak, a young man of short stature with a concentrated gaze of lively and expressive eyes... inspired us boys with deep respect for himself with the seriousness of his thoughts and actions,” said his corps comrade. When Kolchak was awarded the first prize in 1894, he refused it in favor of his comrade, whom he considered more capable than himself.

After completing his studies, Alexander Vasilyevich spent four years on ships of the Pacific Fleet. At a parking lot in Piraeus, Greece, he was found by Eduard Tol, a famous geographer and geologist. He enlisted Kolchak in the expedition being prepared to search for the legendary Sannikov Land. In May 1901, during the wintering of the schooner "Zarya", Tol and Kolchak completed a 500-kilometer route by dog ​​sled in 41 days. The restrained Tol then called Kolchak “the best officer of the expedition,” and one of the islands discovered in the Taimyr Gulf of the Kara Sea was named after Kolchak. Later, during Soviet times, this island was renamed.

After a two-year expedition on the wooden whaler "Zarya", two winters in the ice, a return and a new journey in the footsteps of the missing Baron Tolya, Kolchak will go to the Russo-Japanese War.

In Port Arthur, he commanded a destroyer; wounded and seriously ill, he was captured by the Japanese. And at the end of April 1905, together with a group of officers, he went to Russia through America.

Since then, Kolchak has done a lot to restore the fleet, working at the Naval Academy and the Naval General Staff. At the same time, he published works based on the results of polar expeditions, in which he foresaw the global picture of ice drift in the Arctic Ocean. Half a century later, his hypothesis was confirmed by the trajectories of Soviet and American drifting stations. A century later, Kolchak’s Arctic research will become particularly relevant due to the fact that there will be an active struggle for the territories of the Arctic Ocean in the international arena.

When the world war began, Kolchak proved himself to be an outstanding mine specialist. It was his system of laying out minefields that helped reliably protect naval bases and warships. With the direct participation of Alexander Kolchak, enemy convoys and warships were destroyed. He did not leave the bridge for weeks, amazing with his endurance and infecting everyone with energy - from ship commanders to lower ranks.

Even before the end of the war, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet with promotion to vice admiral. This news found Kolchak in Revel. He immediately hurried to Helsingfors to receive further instructions.

Fateful meeting

Coincidentally, the heyday of Alexander Kolchak’s career occurred in the troubled pre-revolutionary times. At the same time, he met with Anna Vasilievna Timireva, the daughter of the director of the Moscow Conservatory, Vasily Safonov.

Kolchak and Timireva met in the house of Lieutenant Podgursky in Helsingfors. Both were not free: Alexander Vasilyevich had a wife and son, Anna Vasilievna had a husband - captain of the 1st rank Sergei Timirev.

Then they did not yet know that they were destined to spend five years together, and most of this time they would have to live apart. For months they kept in touch by letters, which they wrote as often as possible. These messages contain declarations of love and fear of losing each other.

“Two months have passed since I left you, my infinitely dear, and the picture of our meeting is still alive in front of me, just as painful and painful as if it were yesterday, in my soul. I spent so many sleepless nights in my cabin, walking from corner to corner, so many thoughts, bitter, joyless. I don’t know what happened, but with all my being I feel that you have left my life, gone so much that I don’t know if I have so much strength and skill to to bring you back. And without you, my life has neither that meaning, nor that goal, nor that joy. You were more in my life than life itself, and it is impossible for me to continue it without you,” the admiral wrote to Anna Vasilievna.

She confessed her love to him first. "I told him I loved him." And he, who had been hopelessly in love for a long time and, as it seemed to him, answered: “I didn’t tell you that I love you.” - “No, I’m saying this: I always want to see you, I always think about you, it’s such a joy for me to see you.” And he, embarrassed to the point of a spasm in his throat: “I love you more than anything”...

Alexander Vasilyevich took her glove with him everywhere, and in his cabin there hung a photo of Anna Vasilyevna in Russian costume. "...I spend hours looking at your photograph, which stands in front of me. On it is your sweet smile, with which I associate ideas about the morning dawn, about happiness and the joy of life. Maybe that’s why, my guardian angel, things are going well are going well,” wrote Admiral Anna Vasilievna.

"You know as well as I do"

When the monarchy in Russia fell in early March 1917, Kolchak wrote to Timireva: “When events occurred, which are known to you in detail, undoubtedly better than to me, I set the first task to preserve the integrity of the armed forces, the fortress and the port, especially since I received reason to expect the enemy to appear at sea after eight months of his stay in the Bosphorus."

Kolchak enjoyed unquestioned authority in the navy. His skillful actions made it possible for quite a long time to keep the fleet from revolutionary collapse. However, he alone was unable to stop this process.

In rare moments, Kolchak shared his doubts with Timireva: “It’s unpleasant when this feeling (of command) is absent or weakens and when doubt arises, which at times turns into some kind of sleepless night, into an absurd delirium about one’s complete failure, mistakes, failures.”

“Our experiences over two wars and two revolutions will make us disabled by the time of possible order... On the basis of savagery and semi-literacy, the fruits turned out to be truly amazing... However, this is everywhere, and you yourself know it no worse than me...”, - Alexander Kolchak wrote to Timireva.

Supreme ruler of the Russian state

In October 1918, the admiral was appointed minister of war and navy of the “Siberian government”, and on November 18, with the support of cadets, White Guard officers and interventionists, he carried out a coup and established a military dictatorship, accepting the title of “supreme ruler of the Russian state” and the title of supreme commander in chief.

By this time, Kolchak’s wife Sophia had already been living in exile for several years. This is how Alexander Vasilyevich describes his position to her: “I serve the Motherland of my Great Russia as I served it all the time, commanding a ship, division or fleet. I am not on any side a representative of the hereditary or elected authorities. I look at my rank as a position of a purely official nature. Essentially, I am the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who has assumed the functions of the Supreme Civil Power, since for a successful struggle the latter cannot be separated from the functions of the former. My first and main goal is to erase Bolshevism and everything associated with it Russia".

The last years of the admiral's life

In 1918, Timireva announced to her husband her intention to “always be close to Alexander Vasilyevich” and was soon officially divorced. After this, Anna Vasilievna considered herself Kolchak’s wife. They stayed together for less than two years - until January 1920, when Kolchak was transferred to the Revolutionary Committee.

Almost until the very end, Kolchak and Timireva addressed each other as “you” and by their first and patronymic names: “Anna Vasilievna”, “Alexander Vasilyevich”. In Anna’s letters, she only breaks out once: “Sasha.”

A few hours before the execution, Kolchak wrote her a note, which never reached the addressee: “My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your affection and concern for me... Don’t worry about me. I feel better, my colds are passing. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I think only about you and your fate... I don’t worry about myself - everything is known in advance. My every move is being watched, and it is very difficult for me to write... Write to me. Yours "Notes are the only joy I can have. I pray for you and bow to your self-sacrifice. My dear, my beloved, do not worry about me and save yourself... Goodbye, I kiss your hands."

Kolchak was shot near the Znamensky Monastery in Irkutsk on February 7, 1920 in accordance with Lenin’s order following the verdict of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee. Before his death, according to legend, the admiral sang his favorite romance, “Shine, Shine, My Star.”

After the execution, Kolchak’s body was taken to Ushakovka (a tributary of the Angara) and thrown into an ice hole.

Later, the memoirs of the chairman of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, Samuil Chudnovsky, were published: “Early in the morning of February 5, I went to prison to carry out the will of the revolutionary committee. Having made sure that the guard consisted of loyal and reliable comrades, I entered the prison and was escorted to "Kolchak's cell. The admiral was awake and dressed in a fur coat and hat. I read him the decision of the revolutionary committee and ordered my people to put hand shackles on him." When they came for the admiral and announced that he would be shot, he asked, seemingly not at all surprised: “Is that so? Without trial?”...

After Kolchak’s death, Anna Vasilievna lived another 55 years. She spent the first forty years of this term in prisons and camps, from which she was occasionally released for a short time. Until the last years of her life, Anna Vasilyevna wrote poetry, among which is this:

I can’t accept it for half a century -

Nothing can help

And you keep leaving again

On that fateful night

But if I'm still alive

Against fate

It's just like your love

And the memory of you.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti, open sources and the Imars communication group

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (November 4 (16), 1874, St. Petersburg province - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian politician, vice admiral of the Russian Imperial Fleet (1916) and admiral of the Siberian Flotilla (1918).

Polar explorer and oceanographer, participant in expeditions of 1900-1903 (awarded by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society with the Great Constantine Medal, 1906). Participant in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars.

Leader and leader of the White movement in the East of Russia. The Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920), was recognized in this position by the leadership of all white regions, “de jure” by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, “de facto” by the Entente states.

The first widely known representative of the Kolchak family was the Ottoman military leader Ilias Kolchak Pasha, commander of the Moldavian front of the Turkish army, and later commandant of the Khotyn fortress, captured by Field Marshal H. A. Minich.

After the end of the war, Kolchak Pasha settled in Poland, and in 1794 his descendants moved to Russia and converted to Orthodoxy.

Alexander Vasilyevich was born into the family of a representative of this family, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak (1837-1913), a staff captain of the naval artillery, later a major general in the Admiralty.

V.I. Kolchak received his first officer rank after being seriously wounded during the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War of 1853-1856: he was one of the seven surviving defenders of the Stone Tower on Malakhov Kurgan, whom the French found among the corpses after the assault.

After the war, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and, until his retirement, served as a receptionist for the Maritime Ministry at the Obukhov plant, having a reputation as a straightforward and extremely scrupulous person.

Mother Olga Ilyinichna Kolchak, née Posokhova, came from an Odessa merchant family.

Alexander Vasilyevich himself was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoye near St. Petersburg. The birth document of their first-born son testifies:
“...in the 1874 metric book of the Trinity Church. Aleksandrovsky St. Petersburg district at No. 50 shows: Naval artillery with staff captain Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak and his legal wife Olga Ilyina, both Orthodox and first-weds, son Alexander was born on November 4, and baptized on December 15, 1874. His successors were: naval staff captain Alexander Ivanovich Kolchak and the widow of the collegiate secretary Daria Filippovna Ivanova.”

The future admiral received his primary education at home, and then studied at the 6th St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium.
In 1894, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps, and on August 6, 1894 he was assigned to the 1st rank cruiser "Rurik" as an assistant watch commander and on November 15, 1894 he was promoted to the rank of midshipman. On this cruiser he departed for the Far East.

At the end of 1896, Kolchak was assigned to the 2nd rank cruiser "Cruiser" as a watch commander. On this ship he went on campaigns in the Pacific Ocean for several years, and in 1899 he returned to Kronstadt.

On December 6, 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant. During the campaigns, Kolchak not only fulfilled his official duties, but also actively engaged in self-education. He also became interested in oceanography and hydrology.

Upon arrival in Kronstadt, Kolchak went to see Vice Admiral S. O. Makarov, who was preparing to sail on the icebreaker Ermak in the Arctic Ocean. Alexander Vasilyevich asked to be accepted into the expedition, but was refused “due to official circumstances.”

After this, for some time being part of the personnel of the ship "Prince Pozharsky", Kolchak in September 1899 transferred to the squadron battleship "Petropavlovsk" and went to the Far East on it. However, while staying in the Greek port of Piraeus, he received an invitation from the Academy of Sciences from Baron E.V. Toll to take part in the mentioned expedition.

From Greece through Odessa in January 1900, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg. The head of the expedition invited Alexander Vasilievich to lead the hydrological work, and in addition to be the second magnetologist. Throughout the winter and spring of 1900, Kolchak prepared for the expedition.

On July 21, 1900, the expedition on the schooner “Zarya” moved across the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas to the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula, where they would spend their first winter. In October 1900, Kolchak took part in Toll’s trip to the Gafner fjord, and in April-May 1901 the two of them traveled around Taimyr.

Throughout the expedition, the future admiral conducted active scientific work. In 1901, E.V. Toll immortalized the name of A.V. Kolchak, naming an island in the Kara Sea and a cape discovered by the expedition after him. Based on the results of the expedition in 1906, he was elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society.

In the spring of 1902, Toll decided to head on foot north of the New Siberian Islands together with magnetologist F. G. Seberg and two mushers. The remaining members of the expedition, due to a lack of food supplies, had to go from Bennett Island to the south, to the mainland, and then return to St. Petersburg. Kolchak and his companions went to the mouth of the Lena and arrived in the capital through Yakutsk and Irkutsk.

Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vasilyevich reported to the Academy about the work done, and also reported on the enterprise of Baron Toll, from whom no news had been received either by that time or later. In January 1903, it was decided to organize an expedition, the purpose of which was to clarify the fate of Toll’s expedition.

The expedition took place from May 5 to December 7, 1903. It consisted of 17 people on 12 sledges pulled by 160 dogs. The journey to Bennett Island took three months and was extremely difficult. On August 4, 1903, having reached Bennett Island, the expedition discovered traces of Toll and his companions: expedition documents, collections, geodetic instruments and a diary were found.

It turned out that Toll arrived on the island in the summer of 1902, and headed south, having a supply of provisions for only 2-3 weeks. It became clear that Toll's expedition was lost.

In December 1903, 29-year-old Lieutenant Kolchak, exhausted from the polar expedition, set off on his way back to St. Petersburg, where he was going to marry his bride Sofia Omirova. Not far from Irkutsk, he was caught by the news of the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. He summoned his father and bride by telegram to Siberia and immediately after the wedding he left for Port Arthur.

The commander of the Pacific Squadron, Admiral S. O. Makarov, invited him to serve on the battleship Petropavlovsk, which was the flagship of the squadron from January to April 1904. Kolchak refused and asked to be assigned to the fast cruiser Askold, which soon saved his life.

A few days later, the Petropavlovsk hit a mine and quickly sank, taking to the bottom more than 600 sailors and officers, including Makarov himself and the famous battle painter V.V. Vereshchagin. Soon after this, Kolchak achieved a transfer to the destroyer "Angry".

Commanded a destroyer. Towards the end of the siege of Port Arthur, he had to command a coastal artillery battery, as severe rheumatism - a consequence of two polar expeditions - forced him to abandon the warship. This was followed by injury, the surrender of Port Arthur and Japanese captivity, in which Kolchak spent 4 months. Upon his return, he was awarded the Arms of St. George - the Golden Saber with the inscription “For Bravery.”

Freed from captivity, Kolchak received the rank of captain of the second rank. The main task of the group of naval officers and admirals, which included Kolchak, was to develop plans for the further development of the Russian navy.

In 1906, the Naval General Staff was created (including on Kolchak’s initiative), which took over the direct combat training of the fleet. Alexander Vasilyevich was the head of its department of Russian statistics, was involved in developments for the reorganization of the navy, and spoke in the State Duma as an expert on naval issues.

Then a shipbuilding program was drawn up. To obtain additional funding, officers and admirals actively lobbied their program in the Duma. The construction of new ships progressed slowly - 6 (out of 8) battleships, about 10 cruisers and several dozen destroyers and submarines entered service only in 1915-1916, at the height of the First World War, and some of the ships laid down at that time were already being completed in the 1930s.

Taking into account the significant numerical superiority of the potential enemy, the Naval General Staff developed a new plan for the defense of St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland - in the event of a threat of attack, all ships of the Baltic Fleet, upon an agreed signal, were to go to sea and place 8 lines of minefields at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, covered by coastal batteries.

Captain of the second rank Kolchak took part in the design of special icebreaking ships “Taimyr” and “Vaigach”, launched in 1909. In the spring of 1910, these ships arrived in Vladivostok, then went on a cartographic expedition to the Bering Strait and Cape Dezhnev, returning in the fall back to Vladivostok.

Kolchak commanded the icebreaker Vaygach on this expedition. In 1908 he went to work at the Maritime Academy. In 1909, Kolchak published his largest study - a monograph summarizing his glaciological research in the Arctic - “Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas” (Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Physics and Mathematics Department. St. Petersburg, 1909. T.26, No. 1.).

Participated in the development of an expedition project to study the Northern Sea Route. In 1909-1910 The expedition, in which Kolchak commanded the ship, made the transition from the Baltic Sea to Vladivostok, and then sailed towards Cape Dezhnev.

Since 1910, he was involved in the development of the Russian shipbuilding program at the Naval General Staff.

In 1912, Kolchak transferred to serve in the Baltic Fleet as a flag captain in the operational department of the fleet commander's headquarters. In December 1913 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank.

To protect the capital from a possible attack by the German fleet, the Mine Division, on the personal order of Admiral Essen, set up minefields in the waters of the Gulf of Finland on the night of July 18, 1914, without waiting for permission from the Minister of the Navy and Nicholas II.

In the fall of 1914, with the personal participation of Kolchak, an operation to blockade German naval bases with mines was developed. In 1914-1915 destroyers and cruisers, including those under the command of Kolchak, laid mines at Kiel, Danzig (Gdansk), Pillau (modern Baltiysk), Vindava and even at the island of Bornholm.

As a result, 4 German cruisers were blown up in these minefields (2 of them sank - Friedrich Karl and Bremen (according to other sources, the submarine E-9 was sunk), 8 destroyers and 11 transports.

At the same time, an attempt to intercept a German convoy transporting ore from Sweden, in which Kolchak was directly involved, ended in failure.

In addition to successfully laying mines, he organized attacks on caravans of German merchant ships. From September 1915 he commanded a mine division, then naval forces in the Gulf of Riga.

In April 1916 he was promoted to rear admiral.

In July 1916, by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Alexander Vasilyevich was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

This is how Kolchak himself explained the reason for this transfer from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea: “...my appointment to the Black Sea was determined by the fact that in the spring of 1917 it was planned to carry out the so-called Bosphorus operation, that is, to carry out an attack on Constantinople... When I asked why exactly I was called when I was working all the time in the Baltic Fleet... - Gen. Alekseev said that the general opinion at headquarters was that I personally, due to my properties, can perform this operation more successfully than anyone else.”

It was in 1915-1916. A romantic, deep, long-term love relationship between A.V. Kolchak and Anna Vasilyevna Timireva begins.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, Headquarters began preparing an amphibious operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned. He received gratitude from the Minister of War Guchkov for his quick and reasonable actions, with which he contributed to maintaining order in the Black Sea Fleet.

However, due to the defeatist propaganda and agitation that penetrated the army and navy after February 1917, both the army and the navy began to move towards their collapse. On April 25, 1917, Alexander Vasilyevich spoke at a meeting of officers with a report “The situation of our armed forces and relations with the allies.”

Among other things, Kolchak noted: “We are facing the collapse and destruction of our armed force, [for] the old forms of discipline have collapsed, and new ones have not been created.”

Kolchak demanded an end to homegrown reforms based on “conceit of ignorance” and to accept the forms of discipline and organization of internal life already accepted by the Allies.

On April 29, 1917, with the sanction of Kolchak, a delegation of about 300 sailors and Sevastopol workers left Sevastopol with the goal of influencing the Baltic Fleet and the armies of the front, “to wage the war actively with full effort.”

In June 1917, the Sevastopol Council decided to disarm officers suspected of counter-revolution, including taking away Kolchak’s St. George’s weapon - the golden saber awarded to him for Port Arthur. The admiral chose to throw the blade overboard with the words: “The newspapers don’t want us to have weapons, so let him go to sea.”

On the same day, Alexander Vasilyevich handed over the affairs to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin. Three weeks later, the divers lifted the saber from the bottom and handed it to Kolchak, engraving on the blade the inscription: “To the Knight of Honor Admiral Kolchak from the Union of Army and Navy Officers.” At this time, Kolchak, along with the General Staff infantry general L.G. Kornilov, was considered as a potential candidate for military dictator.

It was for this reason that in August A.F. Kerensky summoned the admiral to Petrograd, where he forced him to resign, after which, at the invitation of the command of the American fleet, he went to the United States to advise American specialists on the experience of Russian sailors using mine weapons in the Baltic and Black Seas in the First World War.

According to Kolchak, there was another, secret, reason for his trip to the USA: “... Admiral Glenon told me in top secret that in America there was a proposal to take active action by the American fleet in the Mediterranean Sea against the Turks and the Dardanelles.

Knowing that I was engaged in similar operations, adm. Glenon told me that it would be desirable for me to give all the information on the question of landing operations in the Bosporus. Regarding this landing operation, he asked me not to say anything to anyone and not even to inform the government about it, since he would ask the government to send me to America, officially to report information on mine affairs and the fight against submarines.”

In San Francisco, Kolchak was offered to stay in the United States, promising him a chair in mine engineering at the best naval college and a rich life in a cottage on the ocean. Kolchak refused and went back to Russia.

Arriving in Japan, Kolchak learned about the October Revolution, the liquidation of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the negotiations begun by the Bolsheviks with the Germans. He agreed to a telegram proposing his candidacy for the Constituent Assembly from the cadets and a group of non-party members in the Black Sea Fleet District, but his response was received late. The admiral left for Tokyo.

There he handed the British ambassador a request for admission into the English army “at least as privates.” The ambassador, after consultations with London, handed Kolchak a direction to the Mesopotamian front.

On the way there, in Singapore, he was overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Kudashev, inviting him to Manchuria to form Russian military units. Kolchak went to Beijing, after which he began organizing Russian armed forces to protect the Chinese Eastern Railway.

However, due to disagreements with Ataman Semyonov and the manager of the CER, General Horvat, Admiral Kolchak left Manchuria and went to Russia, intending to join the Volunteer Army of Generals Alekseev and Denikin. He left behind a wife and son in Sevastopol.

On October 13, 1918, he arrived in Omsk, from where the next day he sent a letter to General Alekseev (received on the Don in November - after Alekseev’s death), in which he expressed his intention to go to the South of Russia in order to come at his disposal as a subordinate.

Meanwhile, a political crisis broke out in Omsk. On November 4, 1918, Kolchak, as a popular figure among officers, was invited to the post of Minister of War and Navy in the Council of Ministers of the so-called “Directory” - the united anti-Bolshevik government located in Omsk, where the majority were Socialist Revolutionaries.

On the night of November 18, 1918, a coup took place in Omsk - Cossack officers arrested four Socialist Revolutionary leaders of the Directory, led by its chairman N. D. Avksentiev. In the current situation, the Council of Ministers - the executive body of the Directory - announced the assumption of full supreme power and then decided to hand it over to one person, giving him the title of Supreme Ruler of the Russian State.

Kolchak was elected to this post by secret ballot of members of the Council of Ministers. The admiral announced his consent to the election and with his first order to the army announced that he would assume the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

After coming to power, A.V. Kolchak canceled the order that Jews, as potential spies, were subject to eviction from the 100-verst front-line zone.

Addressing the population, Kolchak declared: “Having accepted the cross of this government in the extremely difficult conditions of the civil war and the complete breakdown of state life, I declare that I will not follow either the path of reaction or the disastrous path of party membership.”

The second, inextricably linked with the first, is “victory over Bolshevism.” The third task, the solution of which was recognized as possible only under the condition of victory, was proclaimed “the revival and resurrection of a dying state.”

All the activities of the new government were declared aimed at ensuring that “the temporary supreme power of the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief could transfer the fate of the state into the hands of the people, allowing them to organize public administration according to their will.”

Kolchak hoped that under the banner of the fight against the Reds he would be able to unite the most diverse political forces and create a new state power. At first, the situation at the fronts was favorable to these plans. In December 1918, the Siberian Army occupied Perm, which had important strategic importance and significant reserves of military equipment.

In March 1919, Kolchak’s troops launched an attack on Samara and Kazan, in April they occupied the entire Urals and approached the Volga.

However, due to Kolchak’s incompetence in organizing and managing the ground army (as well as his assistants), the militarily favorable situation soon gave way to a catastrophic one. The dispersion and stretching of forces, the lack of logistics support and the general lack of coordination of actions led to the fact that the Red Army was able to first stop Kolchak’s troops and then launch a counteroffensive.

In May, the retreat of Kolchak’s troops began, and by August they were forced to leave Ufa, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.

In June 1919, the Supreme Ruler, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, rejected K.G. Mannerheim’s proposal to move the 100,000-strong Finnish army to Petrograd in exchange for recognizing the independence of Finland, declaring that he would “never give up for any momentary gain” the “idea great indivisible Russia."

The result of everything was a more than six-month retreat of Kolchak’s armies to the east, which ended with the fall of the Omsk regime.

It must be said that Kolchak himself was well aware of the fact of a desperate personnel shortage, which ultimately led to the tragedy of his army in 1919. In particular, in a conversation with General Inostrantsev, Kolchak openly stated this sad circumstance: “You will soon see for yourself how poor we are in people, why we have to endure even in high positions, not excluding the posts of ministers, people who are far from corresponding to the places they occupy , but this is because there is no one to replace them..."

The same opinions prevailed in the active army. For example, General Shchepikhin said:
“It is incomprehensible to the mind, it is like a surprise how long-suffering our passion-bearer, an ordinary officer and soldier, is. No matter what experiments were carried out with him, what kind of tricks our “strategic boys” - Kostya (Sakharov) and Mitka (Lebedev) - did not throw out with his passive participation - and the cup of patience still did not overflow ... "

Units of the armies controlled by Kolchak in Siberia carried out punitive operations in areas where the partisans operated; detachments of the Czechoslovak Corps were also used in these operations. Admiral Kolchak’s attitude towards the Bolsheviks, whom he called “a gang of robbers”, “enemies of the people”, was extremely negative.

On November 30, 1918, Kolchak's government passed a decree, signed by the Supreme Ruler of Russia, which provided for the death penalty for those guilty of "obstructing" the exercise of power by Kolchak or the Council of Ministers.
Autograph of the Supreme Ruler of Russia Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

Member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionaries D.F. Rakov was arrested on the night of the coup in Omsk on November 18, 1918, which put Kolchak in power. Until March 21, 1919, he was imprisoned in several prisons in Omsk under the threat of execution. A description of his time in prison, sent to one of Rakov’s comrades, was published in 1920 in the form of a brochure entitled “In the dungeons of Kolchak. Voice from Siberia."

The political leaders of the Czechoslovak corps B. Pavlo and V. Girsa in an official memorandum to the allies in November 1919 stated: The unbearable state in which our army finds itself forces you to turn to the allied powers with a request for advice on how the Czechoslovak army could ensure its own security and free return to their homeland, the issue of which was resolved with the consent of all the Allied powers. Our army agreed to guard the highway and communication routes in the area designated for it and performed this task quite conscientiously. At the moment, the presence of our troops on the highway and its protection is becoming impossible simply because of aimlessness, as well as due to the most elementary requirements of justice and humanity. While guarding the railway and maintaining order in the country, our army is forced to maintain the state of complete arbitrariness and lawlessness that has reigned here. Under the protection of Czechoslovakian bayonets, local Russian military authorities allow themselves to take actions that would horrify the entire civilized world. The burning of villages, the beating of peaceful Russian citizens by hundreds, the execution without trial of representatives of democracy on simple suspicion of political unreliability are common occurrences, and responsibility for everything before the court of the peoples of the whole world falls on you: why did we, having military force, not resist this lawlessness.

According to G. K. Gins, with the publication of this memorandum, Czech representatives were looking for justification for their flight from Siberia and evasion of support for the retreating Kolchak troops, and also were looking for rapprochement with the left. Simultaneously with the release of the Czech memorandum in Irkutsk, the demoted Czech general Gaida attempted an anti-Kolchak coup in Vladivostok on November 17, 1919.

According to the official conclusion sent by Lenin to Siberia, the head. dept. Justice Sibrevkom A.G. Goykhbarg, in the Yekaterinburg province, one of the 12 provinces under Kolchak’s control, about 10% of the two million population, including women and children, were subjected to corporal punishment; in the same province, at least 25 thousand people were shot.

During the suppression of the Bolshevik armed uprising on December 22, 1918, according to official data in Omsk, 49 people were shot by the verdict of a military court, 13 people were sentenced to hard labor and prison, 3 were acquitted and 133 people were killed during the suppression of the uprising. In the village of Kulomzino (a suburb of Omsk) there were more victims, namely: 117 people were shot by court verdict, 24 were acquitted, 144 were killed during the suppression of the rebellion.

More than 625 people were shot during the suppression of the uprising in Kustanai in April 1919, several villages were burned out. Kolchak addressed the following order to the suppressors of the uprising: “On behalf of the service, I thank Major General Volkov and all the gentlemen officers, soldiers and Cossacks who took part in the suppression of the uprising. The most distinguished ones will be nominated for awards.”

On the night of July 30, 1919, an uprising broke out in the Krasnoyarsk military town, in which the 3rd regiment of the 2nd separate brigade and the majority of the soldiers of the 31st regiment of the 8th division took part, up to 3 thousand people in total.

Having captured the military town, the rebels launched an attack on Krasnoyarsk, but were defeated, losing up to 700 people killed. The admiral sent a telegram to General Rozanov, who led the suppression of the uprising: “I thank you, all the commanders, officers, riflemen and Cossacks for the job well done.”

After the defeat in the fall of 1918, Bolshevik detachments settled in the taiga, mainly north of Krasnoyarsk and in the Minusinsk region, and, replenished with deserters, began to attack the communications of the White Army. In the spring of 1919, they were surrounded and partly destroyed, partly driven even deeper into the taiga, and partly fled to China.

The peasantry of Siberia, as well as throughout Russia, who did not want to fight in either the Red or White armies, avoiding mobilization, fled to the forests, organizing “green” gangs. This picture was also observed in the rear of Kolchak’s army. But until September - October 1919, these detachments were small in number and did not pose a particular problem for the authorities.

But when the front collapsed in the fall of 1919, the collapse of the army and mass desertion began. Deserters began en masse to join the newly activated Bolshevik detachments, as a result of which their numbers grew to tens of thousands of people.

As A.L. Litvin notes about the period of Kolchak’s rule, “it is difficult to talk about support for his policies in Siberia and the Urals, if out of approximately 400 thousand Red partisans of that time, 150 thousand acted against him, and among them 4-5% were wealthy peasants, or, as they were called then, kulaks"

In 1914-1917, about a third of Russia's gold reserves were sent for temporary storage to England and Canada, and about half were exported to Kazan. Part of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, stored in Kazan (more than 500 tons), was captured on August 7, 1918 by the troops of the People's Army under the command of the General Staff of Colonel V. O. Kappel and sent to Samara, where the KOMUCH government was established.

From Samara, gold was transported to Ufa for some time, and at the end of November 1918, the gold reserves of the Russian Empire were moved to Omsk and came into the possession of the Kolchak government. The gold was deposited in a local branch of the State Bank. In May 1919, it was established that in total there was gold worth 650 million rubles (505 tons) in Omsk.

Having at his disposal most of Russia's gold reserves, Kolchak did not allow his government to spend gold, even to stabilize the financial system and fight inflation (which was facilitated by the rampant issue of “kerenoks” and tsarist rubles by the Bolsheviks).

Kolchak spent 68 million rubles on the purchase of weapons and uniforms for his army. Loans were obtained from foreign banks secured by 128 million rubles: proceeds from the placement were returned to Russia.

On October 31, 1919, the gold reserves, under heavy security, were loaded into 40 wagons, with accompanying personnel in another 12 wagons. The Trans-Siberian Railway, stretching from Novo-Nikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) to Irkutsk, was controlled by the Czechs, whose main task was their own evacuation from Russia.

Only on December 27, 1919, the headquarters train and the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, where representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchak to sign an order to renounce the rights of the Supreme Ruler of Russia and transfer the train with the gold reserve to the control of the Czechoslovak Corps.

On January 15, 1920, the Czech command handed Kolchak over to the Socialist Revolutionary Political Center, which within a few days handed the admiral over to the Bolsheviks. On February 7, the Czechoslovaks handed over 409 million rubles in gold to the Bolsheviks in exchange for guarantees of the unhindered evacuation of the corps from Russia.

In June 1921, the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR drew up a certificate from which it follows that during the reign of Admiral Kolchak, Russia's gold reserves decreased by 235.6 million rubles, or 182 tons. Another 35 million rubles from the gold reserves disappeared after it was transferred to the Bolsheviks, during transportation from Irkutsk to Kazan.

On January 4, 1920, in Nizhneudinsk, Admiral A.V. Kolchak signed his last Decree, in which he announced his intention to transfer the powers of the “Supreme All-Russian Power” to A.I. Denikin. Until the receipt of instructions from A.I. Denikin, “the entirety of military and civil power throughout the entire territory of the Russian Eastern Outskirts” was granted to Lieutenant General G.M. Semyonov.

On January 5, 1920, a coup took place in Irkutsk, the city was captured by the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center. On January 15, A.V. Kolchak, who left Nizhneudinsk on a Czechoslovak train, in a carriage flying the flags of Great Britain, France, the USA, Japan and Czechoslovakia, arrived on the outskirts of Irkutsk.

The Czechoslovak command, at the request of the Socialist Revolutionary Political Center, with the sanction of the French General Janin, handed over Kolchak to his representatives. On January 21, the Political Center transferred power in Irkutsk to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. From January 21 to February 6, 1920, Kolchak was interrogated by the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry.

On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral A.V. Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia V.N. Pepelyaev were shot on the banks of the Ushakovka River without trial, by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.

The resolution of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee on the execution of the Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev was signed by A. Shiryamov, the chairman of the committee and its members A. Snoskarev, M. Levenson and the committee manager Oborin.

The text of the resolution on the execution of A.V. Kolchak and V.N. Pepelyaev was first published in an article by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee A. Shiryamov. In 1991, L. G. Kolotilo made the assumption that the execution order was drawn up after the execution, as an exculpatory document, because it was dated February 7, and S. Chudnovsky and the pre-Gubchek prison were sent to the prison. N. Bursak arrived at two o’clock in the morning on February 7th, allegedly already with the text of the resolution, and before that they made up a firing squad of communists.

In the work of V.I. Shishkin in 1998, it is shown that the original of the resolution available in the GARF is dated the sixth of February, and not the seventh, as indicated in the article of A. Shiryamov, who compiled this resolution. However, the same source provides the text of a telegram from the Chairman of the Sibrevkom and member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 5th Army, I. N. Smirnov, which states that the decision to shoot Kolchak was made at a meeting on February 7th. In addition, Kolchak’s interrogation continued all day on February 6th. The confusion in dates in the documents casts doubt on the drawing up of the execution order before it was carried out.

According to the official version, the execution was carried out out of fear that General Kappel’s units breaking through to Irkutsk had the goal of freeing Kolchak. However, as can be seen from the research of V.I. Shishkin, there was no danger of Kolchak’s release, and his execution was just an act of political retribution and intimidation.

According to the most common version, the execution took place on the banks of the Ushakovka River near the Znamensky Convent. The execution was led by Samuil Gdalyevich Chudnovsky. According to legend, while sitting on the ice awaiting execution, the admiral sang the romance “Burn, burn, my star...”. There is a version that Kolchak himself commanded his execution, since he was the senior in rank among those present. After the execution, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the hole.

Recently, previously unknown documents relating to the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents marked “secret” were found during work on the Irkutsk City Theater’s play “The Admiral’s Star,” based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov.

According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentyevskaya station (on the bank of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the shore of the Angara. Representatives of the investigative authorities arrived and conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak.

Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. Investigators compiled a map on which Kolchak’s grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are being examined.

Based on these documents, Irkutsk historian I.I. Kozlov established the expected location of Kolchak’s grave.

Kolchak’s symbolic grave (cenotaph) is located in the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery.

Kolchak's wife, Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (1876-1956) was born in 1876 in Kamenets-Podolsk, Podolsk province of the Russian Empire (now Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine).

Her father was the actual secret councilor Fyodor Vasilyevich Omirov. Mother Daria Fedorovna, née Kamenskaya, was the daughter of Major General, Director of the Forestry Institute F.A. Kamensky, the sister of the sculptor F.F. Kamensky.

A hereditary noblewoman of the Podolsk province, Sofya Fedorovna was brought up at the Smolny Institute and was a very educated girl (she knew seven languages, she knew French and German perfectly). She was beautiful, strong-willed and independent in character.

By agreement with Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, they were supposed to get married after his first expedition. In honor of Sophia (then bride) a small island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennett Island were named. The wait lasted for several years. They got married on March 5, 1904 in the St. Harlampies Church in Irkutsk.

Sofya Fedorovna gave birth to three children from Kolchak: the first girl was born ca. 1905 and did not live even a month; son Rostislav Kolchak was born on March 9, 1910, daughter Margarita (1912-1914) caught a cold while fleeing from the Germans from Libau and died.

She lived in Gatchina, then in Libau. After the shelling of Libau by the Germans at the beginning of the war (August 2, 1914), she fled, abandoning everything except a few suitcases (Kolchak’s government apartment was then looted and his property was lost). From Helsingfors she moved to her husband in Sevastopol, where during the Civil War she waited for her husband to the last.

In 1919, she managed to emigrate from there: the British allies provided her with money and provided her with the opportunity to travel by ship from Sevastopol to Constanta. Then she moved to Bucharest and then went to Paris. Rostislav was brought there too. Sofya Fedorovna survived the German occupation of Paris and the captivity of her son, an officer in the French army.

She died at Lungjumeau Hospital in Paris in 1956 and was buried in the main cemetery of the Russian diaspora - Sainte-Genevieve des Bois. Admiral Kolchak’s last request before the execution was: “I ask you to inform my wife, who lives in Paris, that I am blessing my son.” “I’ll let you know,” replied the security officer who led the execution, S.G. Chudnovsky.

Kolchak's son Rostislav was born on March 9, 1910. At the age of seven, in the summer of 1917, after his father left for Petrograd, he was sent by his mother to his relatives in Kamenets-Podolsky. In 1919, Rostislav left Russia with his mother and went first to Romania and then to France, where he graduated from the Higher School of Diplomatic and Commercial Sciences and in 1931 joined the Algerian Bank.

Rostislav Kolchak's wife was Ekaterina Razvozova, daughter of Admiral Alexander Razvozov. In 1939, Rostislav Alexandrovich was mobilized into the French army, fought on the Belgian border and was captured by the Germans in 1940; after the war he returned to Paris. After the death of his mother, Rostislav Alexandrovich became the owner of a small family archive.

In poor health, he died on June 28, 1965 and was buried next to his mother in the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, where his wife was later buried. Their son Alexander Rostislavovich (b. 1933) now lives in Paris. Members of the social movement “Legacy of Admiral Kolchak” believe:
If the historical and political significance of the figure of Kolchak can be interpreted differently by contemporaries, then his role as a scientist who enriched science with works of paramount scientific importance is absolutely unambiguous and today is clearly underestimated. The slab hung for just over a day: on the night of November 6, it was broken by unknown persons. A representative of the “Legacy of Admiral Kolchak” movement, Valentina Kiseleva, expressed the opinion that the attackers broke the plaque in memory of Kolchak specifically on the eve of the anniversary of the October Revolution, suggesting the participation of descendants of revolutionaries in this.

After restoration, the board is planned to be installed not in public, but in the courtyard of the chapel of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra, in order to hide it from citizens and thus prevent similar situations.
* In 2008, it was decided to erect a monument to the Supreme Ruler of Russia in Omsk on the Irtysh embankment.
* In Siberia, several places associated with Kolchak and monuments to the victims of the Kolchak revolt have been preserved.
* In October 2008, a film about Kolchak “Admiral” was released. In the fall of 2009, the series “Admiral” was released.
* A number of songs are dedicated to the memory of Kolchak (Alexander Rosenbaum “Kolchak’s Romance”, Zoya Yashchenko and “White Guard” - “In Memory of Kolchak”. The soundtrack to the film “Admiral” was a song with lyrics by Anna Timireva and music by Igor Matvienko “Anna”, group “Lube” "dedicated the song "My Admiral" to Kolchak; poems and poems are dedicated to him.
* The song “In Memory of A.V. Kolchak” (1996) from the album “White Wind” by the poet and performer Kirill Rivel is dedicated to Admiral A.V. Kolchak. After Kolchak’s defeat, the song “English Uniform”, popular in the first post-war years, appeared.

At the end of the Civil War in the Far East and in subsequent years in exile, February 7, the day of the admiral’s execution, was celebrated with memorial services in memory of the “killed warrior Alexander” and served as a day of remembrance for all fallen participants in the White movement in the east of the country, primarily those who died during the retreat of Kolchak’s army winter 1919-1920 (the so-called “Siberian Ice March”).
Kolchak’s name is carved on the monument to the heroes of the White movement (“Gallipoli Obelisk”) at the Parisian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

In Soviet historiography, Kolchak’s personality was identified with many negative manifestations of the chaos and lawlessness of the civil war in the Urals and Siberia. The term "Kolchakism" was used as a synonym for the brutal regime. The “classical” general assessment of the activities of his government was the following characteristic: “bourgeois-monarchist reaction.”

In the post-Soviet period, the Duma of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug decided to return Kolchak’s name to the island in the Kara Sea, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the building of the Naval Corps in St. Petersburg, and in Irkutsk, at the site of the execution, a cross-monument to the admiral.
Modern memory: Russian kitsch Irkutsk beer Admiral Kolchak.

The question of the legal rehabilitation of A.V. Kolchak was first raised in the mid-1990s, when a number of public organizations and individuals (including Academician D.S. Likhachev, Admiral V.N. Shcherbakov, etc.) stated the need assessment of the legality of the death sentence to the admiral passed by the Bolshevik Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.

In 1998, S. Zuev, the head of the Public Fund for the creation of a temple-museum in memory of the victims of political repression, sent an application to the Main Military Prosecutor's Office for the rehabilitation of Kolchak, which reached the court.

On January 26, 1999, the military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District recognized A.V. Kolchak as not subject to rehabilitation, since, from the point of view of military lawyers, despite his broad powers, the admiral did not stop the terror carried out by his counterintelligence against the civilian population.

The admiral's supporters did not agree with these arguments. Hieromonk Nikon (Belavenets), head of the organization “For Faith and Fatherland,” appealed to the Supreme Court with a request to file a protest against the refusal to rehabilitate A.V. Kolchak. The protest was transferred to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, which, having considered the case in September 2001, decided not to appeal the decision of the Military Court of the ZabVO.

Members of the Military Collegium decided that the admiral’s merits in the pre-revolutionary period could not serve as a basis for his rehabilitation: the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee sentenced the admiral to death for organizing military actions against Soviet Russia and mass repressions against civilians and Red Army soldiers, and, therefore, was right

The admiral’s defenders decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court, which in 2000 ruled that the court of the Trans-Baikal Military District did not have the right to consider the case “without notifying the convicted person or his defenders of the time and place of the court hearing.” Since the court of the Western Military District in 1999 considered the case of Kolchak’s rehabilitation in the absence of defense lawyers, then, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, the case should be considered again, this time with the direct participation of the defense.

In 2004, the Constitutional Court noted that the case regarding the rehabilitation of the white commander-in-chief and Supreme Ruler of Russia during the Civil War was not closed, as the Supreme Court had previously ruled. Members of the Constitutional Court found that the court of first instance, where the question of the admiral’s rehabilitation was first raised, violated the legal procedure.

The process of legal rehabilitation of A.V. Kolchak causes an ambiguous attitude even from that part of society that, in principle, positively evaluates this historical figure. In 2006, the governor of the Omsk region L.K. Polezhaev said that A.V. Kolchak does not need rehabilitation, since “time rehabilitated him, not the military prosecutor’s office.”

In 2009, the Tsentrpoligraf publishing house published the scientific work of Ph.D. n. S. V. Drokova “Admiral Kolchak and the court of history.” Based on authentic documents from the Investigative Case of the Supreme Ruler, the author of the book questions the competence of the investigative teams of the prosecutor's offices of 1999-2004. Drokov argues for the need to officially withdraw specific charges formulated and published by the Soviet government against Admiral A.V. Kolchak.

Kolchak in art
* “The Thunderstorm over Belaya”, 1968 (played by Bruno Freundlich)
* “Moonzund”, 1988 (played by Yuri Belyaev)
* “White Horse”, 1993 (played by Anatoly Guzenko)
* “Admiral”, 2008 (played by Konstantin Khabensky)
* “And the Eternal Battle” (played by Boris Plotnikov)
* Song “Lube” “My Admiral”
* Alexander Rosenbaum’s song “Kolchak’s Romance”
* Sets of postcards “A. V. Kolchak in Irkutsk,” parts 1 and 2 (2005). Authors: Andreev S.V., Korobov S.A., Korobova G.V., Kozlov I.I.

Works by A. V. Kolchak
* Kolchak A.V. Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas / Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Phys.-math. department - St. Petersburg: 1909 T. 26, No. 1.
* Kolchak A.V. The last expedition to the island. Bennett, equipped by the Academy of Sciences to search for Baron Toll / News of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. - St. Petersburg: 1906 T. 42, Issue. 2-3.
* Kolchak V.I., Kolchak A.V. Selected works / Comp. V. D. Dotsenko. - St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 2001. - 384 p. — ISBN 5-7355-0592-0

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak - the famous leader of the White Movement in Siberia, Supreme Commander-in-Chief, admiral, polar explorer and hydrograph scientist was born in the village of Aleksandrovskoye near St. Petersburg on November 16, 1874 in a family of a hereditary military man. Father - Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak, nobleman and major general of naval artillery, mother - Olga Ilyinichna Posokhova, Don Cossack. In 1888, after graduating from the St. Petersburg Classical Men's Gymnasium, Kolchak entered the Naval Cadet Corps, from which he graduated in 1894 with the rank of midshipman. After graduation, Kolchak in 1895, as a watch officer on the cruiser Rurik, went to Vladivostok through the southern seas. During the transition, he became interested in hydrology and hydrography, and then he developed a desire to independently engage in scientific research.

Two years later, already as a lieutenant, Kolchak returned to the location of the Baltic Fleet on the cruiser clipper. Upon returning to Kronstadt, he tries to join the polar expedition on the icebreaker Ermak under the leadership of Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov, but the icebreaker’s crew was already complete. Kolchak decided not to give up and, having learned that the Imperial Academy of Sciences was preparing a project to study the Arctic Ocean in the area of ​​the New Siberian Islands, he made efforts to become one of the participants in the expedition. Fortunately for Kolchak, the leader of the expedition, Baron Toll, was familiar with his scientific publications on hydrology and needed naval officers, so he agreed.

Polar explorer - Lieutenant Kolchak

Under the patronage of the President of the Academy of Sciences, Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich, Kolchak was temporarily dismissed from military service, placed at the disposal of the Academy and received the position of head of the hydrological work of the expedition. The researchers' plans were to go around Eurasia from the north, around Cape Dezhnev and return to Vladivostok. This was Russia's first academic voyage in the Arctic Ocean, completed on its own ship. On June 8, 1900, the expeditionary schooner “Zarya” left St. Petersburg and headed for Arctic waters, but already in September, having encountered impassable ice, it began to spend the winter in the Taimyr Strait. On August 10, 1901, ice began to move and the Zarya’s voyage continued, but less than a month later it had to go to its second winter quarters near Kotelny Island. During the second wintering, Kolchak takes part in the study of the New Siberian Islands, conducting magnetic and astronomical observations. At the end of August, the expedition ended in Tiksi at the mouth of the Lena, and through Yakutsk and Irkutsk by December 1902, Kolchak returned to St. Petersburg.

In 1904, having learned about the outbreak of war with Japan, Kolchak was transferred back to the Naval Department and headed to Port Arthur. There he commanded the destroyer "Angry" for some time; later, due to health reasons, he was transferred to land and appointed commander of an artillery battery. After the surrender of the garrison of Port Arthur, having been in Japanese captivity, in the summer of 1905 he returned to St. Petersburg. For participation in hostilities he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree, and St. Stanislav, 2nd degree. After the war, Kolchak was engaged in scientific activities, several of his studies on the hydrology of the northern seas were published. In 1908 he was awarded the rank of captain 2nd rank. In 1909-10 participates in the study of the marine area near Cape Dezhnev on the icebreakers “Vaigach” and “Taimyr”. Since the beginning of the First World War, he has been developing defensive operations at the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet and is engaged in the installation of minefields, taking into account the experience of Port Arthur. In June 1916, Kolchak was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet, thus becoming the youngest admiral among all the warring powers. At the same time he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 1st degree. Being a convinced monarchist, Kolchak received the news of Nicholas 2’s abdication of the throne with great grief. Thanks to his leadership and skillful neutralization of Bolshevik agitators, the Black Sea Fleet managed to avoid anarchy and maintain combat effectiveness for a long time. In June 1917, Kolchak was removed from office and recalled to Petrograd. As a result of intrigues in the Provisional Government, he was forced to leave Russia, traveling to the United States as part of the Russian naval mission.

Admiral Kolchak during the Civil War

In November 1917, Kolchak arrived in Japan, where he received news of the Bolsheviks coming to power. In May 1918, with the support of England and Japan, he began to form anti-Bolshevik forces around himself in Harbin, China. In September, Kolchak arrived in Vladivostok, where he negotiated joint actions against the Bolsheviks with the leaders of the Czechoslovak corps. In October he arrives in Omsk, where he was appointed Minister of War in the Government of the Directory. On November 18, 1918, as a result of a military coup, Kolchak was proclaimed the Supreme Ruler of Russia. His power was recognized by the entire white movement in Russia, including Denikin. Having received military-technical assistance from the United States and the Entente countries and taking advantage of the country's gold reserves, Kolchak formed an army of more than 400 thousand people and began an offensive in the West. In December, as a result of the Perm operation, Perm was captured, and by the spring of 1919, Ufa, Sterlitamak, Naberezhnye Chelny, Izhevsk. Kolchak’s troops reached the approaches to Kazan, Samara and Simbirsk, this was the peak of success. But already in June, the front, under the pressure of the Red Army, inevitably rolled to the east, and in November Omsk was abandoned. The surrender of the capital set in motion all the forces hostile to Kolchak in the rear, chaos and disorganization began. At the Nizhneudinsk station he was arrested by his Czechoslovak allies, and in January 1920 he was handed over to the Bolsheviks in exchange for a free return home. After his arrest, interrogations began, during which he outlined his biography in detail. The interrogation protocols of Kolchak in the 20s were published as a separate book. On February 7, 1920, Alexander Kolchak, together with his comrade-in-arms, Minister Viktor Pepelyaev, was shot on the banks of the Angara by decision of the Military Revolutionary Committee.

Repeated attempts at legal rehabilitation of Kolchak in post-Soviet times were rejected by the court. In the waiting room of the Irkutsk railway station there is a memorial plaque in memory of the fact that at this place in January 1920 Kolchak was betrayed by his Czechoslovak allies and handed over to the Bolsheviks. And at the site of Kolchak’s alleged execution on the banks of the Angara near the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery in 2004, a monument was erected to him by the people’s sculptor of Russia Vyacheslav Klykov. The figure of the admiral, 4.5 meters high, made of forged copper, stands on a pedestal made of concrete blocks, on which there are reliefs of a Red Army soldier and a White Guard, standing opposite each other with their weapons crossed. The Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local Lore conducts excursions “Kolchak in Irkutsk”, including to the “Museum of the History of the Irkutsk Prison Castle named after A.V. Kolchak”, which houses an exhibition of his former cell.

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak
Born: November 4 (16), 1874
Died: February 7, 1920

Biography

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak- Russian military and political figure, polar explorer, one of the leaders of the White movement. Born November 4 (16), 1874 in the village. Aleksandrovskoye, St. Petersburg province, in the family of a major general of naval artillery. In 1894 he graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and was promoted to midshipman. He served on the cruiser "Rurik" and the battleship "Petropavlovsk". In 1900 he received the rank of lieutenant. He became interested in polar research (oceanography and hydrology). In 1900-1902 he took part in the expedition E. Tolya to the Novosibirsk archipelago. During the Russo-Japanese War he distinguished himself during the defense of Port Arthur (1904), was captured, and upon returning to Russia was awarded orders and a golden saber “For Bravery.” In 1906 he was appointed head of the department of the Naval General Staff. Elected full member of the Russian Geographical Society; name Kolchak named one of the islands of the Kara Sea. In 1908 he went to work at the Maritime Academy. In 1909 he published the monograph “Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas”. In 1909-1910 he commanded a ship as part of an expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route. In 1910 he returned to the Naval General Staff. Since 1912 he served in the Baltic Fleet. In 1913 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank. During the First World War, as the chief of the operational unit of the headquarters of the commander of the Baltic Fleet, and then the commander of a mine division, he organized a number of successful operations against the German fleet. In April 1916 he was promoted to rear admiral; in June 1916 he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet with the rank of vice admiral.

After the February Revolution, he expressed support for the Provisional Government. On March 12, 1917, the Black Sea Fleet swore in the new government. He tried to cooperate with the Central Military Executive Committee created by sailors and soldiers in order to prevent the destruction of unity of command and military discipline in the fleet. The intensification of Bolshevik agitation and the deterioration of relations with ship and soldier committees forced him to resign on June 7.

In August 1917, he headed the Russian naval mission to the United States. After the October Revolution of 1917, he was going to stand as a candidate for elections to the Constituent Assembly, but upon learning of the Bolsheviks’ intention to make peace with Germany, he remained abroad. In December 1917 he was accepted into British military service.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, he decided to join the Volunteer Army. Returning to Russia through Siberia in the fall of 1918, he stopped in Omsk, where the Provisional All-Russian Government (Ufa Directory), created by the Social Revolutionaries and Cadets in alliance with the monarchist-minded military, settled. On November 4, he was appointed Minister of War and Navy in the “business office” of the Directory. After the military coup on November 18, which ended with the dissolution of the Directory, he was proclaimed by its organizers as the Supreme Ruler of Russia. Siberia, the Urals and the Far East came under Kolchak’s control. On April 30, 1919, his power was recognized by the Provisional Government of the Northern Region ( N.V. Chaikovsky), June 10 - leader of the "White Cause" in North-West Russia N.N. Yudenich, and on June 12 - Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia A.I. Denikin. May 26 with the government Kolchak established diplomatic relations with the Entente countries.

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak as the Supreme Ruler had unlimited power. Under him functioned the Council of Ministers, which considered draft decrees and laws, the Council of the Supreme Ruler (Star Chamber), which discussed the most important issues of foreign and domestic policy, the State Economic Conference to solve financial and economic problems, the Governing Senate and the Department of Police and State Security. The leadership of ideological work was entrusted to the Central Information Department at the General Staff and the Press Department at the Office of the Council of Ministers.

The main slogan Kolchak was the slogan "united and indivisible Russia". He abolished the autonomy of Bashkiria; considered it untimely to discuss the issue of Finnish independence and the autonomy of the Baltic, Caucasian and Trans-Caspian territories, referring it to the competence of the future Constituent Assembly and the League of Nations. Kolchak focused on an alliance with the Entente and confirmed his loyalty to the foreign policy, military and financial obligations of Tsarist Russia. In the sphere of domestic politics, Kolchak considered it necessary to maintain the military regime until the victory over the Bolsheviks and the convening of the Constituent Assembly, which would determine the state structure of Russia and carry out the necessary reforms.

Troop successes Alexander Kolchak in November-December 1918 (capture of Perm) and March-April 1919 (capture of Ufa, Izhevsk, Bugulma) were replaced, starting from the end of April 1919, by major setbacks: by August 1919, the Red Army captured the Urals and launched military operations in the territory Siberia. Kolchak’s last attempt to achieve a turning point in the war (the September offensive near Petropavlovsk) was thwarted during the counter-offensive of the Eastern Front troops in October-November 1919. Kolchak failed in early November to create a defensive line on the Irtysh and protect Omsk. During the Omsk operation, the army Kolchak was completely destroyed. On November 10, Kolchak, along with the government and the remnants of the troops, fled from his capital. By the end of 1919, the Red Army captured all of Western Siberia. The last Kolchak detachments were destroyed near Krasnoyarsk in early January 1920. Having dismissed his guard on January 5, Kolchak transferred to the Entente train, which guaranteed him safe passage to Vladivostok; On January 6, he transferred the title of Supreme Ruler A.I. Denikin. On January 15, in agreement with representatives of the Entente, the command of the Czechoslovak Corps, trying to ensure the unimpeded advance of its trains to Vladivostok, arrested and extradited Kolchak Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center, which established control over Irkutsk at the end of December 1919. After the transfer of power in the city to the Bolsheviks on January 21, 1920 Kolchak was transferred to the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee, which, on tacit instructions Lenin decided to shoot Kolchak. The execution took place on February 7, 1920. The body was thrown into the Angara.

Commanded:

Battles:

Awards:

Movies: