Table of dates by whom and when Kalnyshevsky was. Peter Kalnyshevsky. The last Koshevoy of the Zaporozhye Sich. War between Russia and Turkey
The shame of the last ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, Peter Kalnyshevsky
On November 13, 2015, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate canonized the last Koshe chieftain of the Zaporozhye Sich, Peter Kalnyshevsky, in Zaporozhye.
The date of the ataman’s canonization was not chosen by chance: the day of remembrance of the fifteenth Zaporozhye [locally revered, by the way] saint, a long-term prisoner of the Solovetsky Monastery, after all, the day of his dormition [death] was established - November 13, 1803.
The Solovetsky part of the ataman’s life, exceeding a quarter of a century, is reflected both in the icon of the righteous Peter Kalnyshevsky and in the troparion [prayerful address] to the saint: “Thou art a faithful son of the Church, / righteous Peter the Cossack, / patient in suffering, / from the earth your fathers were excommunicated,/ you reached the Heavenly Fatherland,/ and having patiently endured persecution,/ you had the boldness to pray to Christ the Hero/ to save our souls.”
To get an idea for what merits “Righteous Peter the Cossack” was awarded holiness, I turned to both his numerous [and largely invented] biographies, and to documents that are in the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory and in the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky Stauropegal Monastery .
And this is what I got.
What did the ataman look like?
In addition to the fresh icon, on which Peter Kalnyshevsky is depicted as an ancient old man [written according to the stories of pilgrims who visited Solovki and recalled that the ataman was supposedly “of average height, wore gray spiky hair, a short gray beard, was dressed in a Chinese blue frock coat,” also known portrait of a Koschevoy with a mace and a medal on his chest on a blue ribbon. As one might assume, this medal confirmed the ataman rank of its owner [introduced by Catherine II].
And a special medal was awarded to the successes of Ataman Kalnyshevsky in the Russian-Turkish war. In particular, when he and the Cossacks took [in 1770] the Turkish fortress of Hadzhibey [which existed on the territory of modern Odessa], the empress awarded him a gold medal with her portrait studded with diamonds. In addition, the newspaper “St. Petersburg Vedomosti” recalls the battle for Khadzhibey and Pyotr Kalnyshevsky himself, and especially notes the merits of the Zaporozhye army. It is curious that in this battle only ten Cossacks were killed (one of them was a chieftain), another 27 Cossacks were wounded.
The main reward for the ataman for the victorious war with the Turks was the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, with which Kalnyshevsky is depicted on the ancient icon “Cossack Intercession”.
One of the copies of this icon [there are several of them in Ukraine] was created in 1905 at the personal request of the historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, about which he left a corresponding note on the back of this incredibly important icon, accurately reflecting the spirit of the Cossack era. Not so long ago, by the way, it was restored and today is on display at the Dnepropetrovsk National Historical Museum. Dm. Yavornitsky. There my colleague Sergei Tomko and I found her, having previously secured permission from the museum director to take photographs.
The icon is, as they say in such cases, a two-tiered image. On the upper, heavenly, tier resides the Mother of God, flanked by St. Nicholas and Archangel Michael. Below them, on the lower tier, symbolizing our mortal land, two groups of Cossacks are depicted. On the right stands out the solemnly dressed Koshevoy Ataman Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, on the left is the military clerk Ivan Globa. At the same time, from the mouth of the koshev come the words addressed to the Mother of God [written directly from the icon]: “Cover us with your honest veil and deliver us from all evil.”
Above the Mother of God, as Margarita Tikhonova, a senior researcher at the museum’s collections department, explained to us, there is an answer: “I will cover and deliver.” Thus, the icon painter conveyed the direct communication of the Cossacks with the Mother of God, who was highly revered in the Sich.
It is no coincidence that I described the icon of Dmitry Yavornitsky in such detail, calling it important: after all, it contains the only image of the last Koshe chieftain of the Zaporozhye Sich, Peter Kalnyshevsky, that has survived to this day. It is even possible that it was made during his lifetime: in 1774, on behalf of the ataman, an icon painter worked in the Sich, creating copies of all important Cossack icons. Could he have written the “Cossack Veil” with a request for intercession addressed to her? Quite.
And now the main question: if we take the date of painting the ataman’s portrait as 1774, how many years will he have to spend in this case?
Judging by his image - no more than sixty. In the icon we see a dashing, strongly built, broad-browed, sleek Cossack with a mustache and a donkey hanging from his ear - a victorious Cossack who finally defeated the Turks, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. According to historical tradition, in 1774 Pyotr Kalnyshevsky was... 83 years old.
It turns out that the historical tradition has gone wrong, to put it mildly? I am sure that this is exactly so: tradition has been misleading the world for many years, assuring that Peter Kalnyshevsky lived in... three centuries: born in 1691, he gave his soul to God in 1803.
“He himself did not want to leave the monastery”
It turns out that the burial place of the glorious Zaporozhye ataman was marked with a gravestone only in 1856, when, by order of the Solovetsky Archimandrite Alexander, a slab with the following epitaph was installed on the grave of Peter Kalnyshevsky: “Here is buried the body of the deceased Koshevoy of the former Zaporozhye formidable slaughter of the Cossacks, Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky, exiled to this monastery by the Supreme Command in 1776 for humility. He was released again in 1801, but he himself did not want to leave the monastery in which he found the peace of mind of a humble Christian who sincerely recognized his guilt. He died on October 1803, 31 days [according to the old style]. 112 years old, by a pious good death."
Before the installation of the slab, as far as I found out, only two facts from the ataman’s pre-siege biography were known:
that he was born on June 29 [on this day in 1678, the hieromonk of the Samara monastery Theodorit congratulated the Koshevoy with the same name] and that his native village is Sumy Pustovitovka, where the Koshevoy “built a wooden church in honor of the Holy Trinity with his own money.”
The literature, of course, describes some details of Ataman Kalnyshevsky’s stay on Solovki.
I don't mean horror stories. Like the widespread stupidity that the ataman supposedly served almost his entire prison term either in a fetid pit or in a stone bag. Historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, using documents found in the Solovetsky Monastery, identified the specific places where Kalnyshevsky was imprisoned and gave a breakdown of his expenses. The general conclusion was this:
Kalnyshevsky was sitting [to put it in terms familiar to us] not in a prison or in a pit, where the most serious criminals were once kept, but “in the monastery cell, where the entire monastery brethren lived, starting with the archimandrite and ending with simple workers.” Yavornitsky separately notes that the last Koshevoy could not be kept in earthen pits, if only because they were walled up back in 1742;
While imprisoned, Kalnyshevsky had quite a decent content: “I saw that he was kept much differently than other prisoners and convicts who were imprisoned in Solovetsky,” receiving 1 ruble a day or 365 - 366 rubles a year.”
Which, by the way, is 40 times more than other prisoners were entitled to. For example, the annual allowance for a monk was nine rubles, for a simple prisoner - from 10 to 30 rubles.
The presence of decent money allowed the ataman to even hire workers to repair his casemate [cell], located in the Arkhangelsk Tower, where the Zaporozhye prisoner was initially placed.
And one more important, in my opinion, detail concerning the dining table of the Solovetsky inhabitants. Traditional dishes in the monastery, as I read in preserved documents, consisted of cold or boiled cod with kvass, horseradish, onions and peppers, cabbage soup with cabbage, halibut, oatmeal and barley groats and chicken soup; There was also dry cod soup with potatoes, podbolt and ground halibut bones “for taste”, porridge - millet on Sundays and holidays, buckwheat - on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, on other days - barley, on fast days - with cream, in lean - with vegetable oil; On Sunday I drank... vodka. All days of the year were divided according to the nature of food intake: on fasting days, dairy products and lean fish were consumed; fast days were divided into fast days with fish and fast days without fish.
The food was quite healthy [and damn filling!], and there were no scurvy diseases among the Solovetsky inhabitants.
The fact that Kalnyshevsky was far from poor in Solovetsky exile is also evidenced by his rich gifts to the monastery: in 1794, he donated a silver altar cross weighing more than 30 pounds to the Transfiguration Cathedral. Well, at the end of his life, he presented the Gospel to the monastery as a gift on Alexandrian paper in a large sheet, the frame of which, according to the description of Archimandrite Meletius, was lined with “gilded silver; on the top board there are nine enamel images decorated with rhinestones; on the spine there is the following inscription: “For the glory of God this Holy Gospel was built, in the monastery of the Holy Transfiguration and the Venerable Father Zasima and Savvaty of Solovetsky wonderworkers, who are on the ocean sea, under Archimandrite Jonah, and with the zeal and cost of the former Zaporozhye Sich kosheva Pyotr Ivanovich Kolnishevsky, 1801,” and a total weight of 34 pounds[ta] 25 zolot[nik] and the total amount of 2435 rub[les].”
The exiled ataman behaved humbly and piously, which earned him respect from the monastic community, and until the end of his life he retained a clear mind and memory.
By decree of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of April 2, 1801, as I have already quoted the epitaph, Kalnyshevsky was pardoned under a general amnesty and received the right to freely choose his place of residence. In response to the freedom given to him, the Koshevoy replied that “here I enjoy it [freedom] to the fullest” and that “I decided to devote the remains of my days to the service of the One God in this blissful solitude, to which, after the twenty-five years of my stay here, I became completely accustomed , in this monastery to wait with a calm spirit for the approaching end of my life.”
It was not the old ataman coming. He simply acted according to the long-standing tradition that existed in the Sich: to live out his life in some quiet monastery. By the way, Kalnyshevsky had his eye on such a monastery for himself during his atamanship. It was... the Mezhigorsky monastery, where Ataman Kalnyshevsky built one of the temples with his own money.
In the documents of the Zaporozhye Sich, the future ataman was first mentioned on February 23, 1754 as the military captain Peter Kalnysh. In 1755, in the register of the Kushchevsky kuren [out of 460 Cossacks], Pyotr Kalnysh was listed as tenth. Three years later, the esaul became a military judge, and in 1762 - a koshev.
While in the position of military captain, whose duty was to maintain public order in the Sich, Kalnysh traveled around the Zaporozhye steppes, engaged, as follows from documents of that time, either in investigating the abuses of the ataman of the town of New Kodak, or collecting taxes from the inhabitants of Old Samara [the territory of modern Dnepropetrovsk] . But his main occupation was the persecution of the Haidamaks. Often, by the way, they were the Cossacks, who in the old fashioned way were engaged in “extortion,” which in the times of the New Sich was already considered a crime. The Sich [Kosh] administration began to fight this phenomenon, which interfered with the development of trade and peaceful pursuits. The fight against the Haidamaks became increasingly tougher. Captain Kalnysh's detachment tirelessly pursued and caught the Haidamaks. Kosh endowed the military captain with extraordinary powers, giving him the right to use weapons in case of any resistance and to arrest all suspects.
In 1754-1755, captain Kalnysh was involved in the creation of a commission to regulate Zaporizhian-Tatar border relations in the town of Nikitino [now the city of Nikopol]. In 1755 and 1757, he was part of the Cossacks' deputation to the imperial court, which gave him an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with the character of the Russian aristocracy and make useful acquaintances. Gradually, significant power was concentrated in his hands. By the beginning of the next decade in the Sich, no one could compete with foreman Pyotr Kalnysh. The elderly Koshevoy Ataman Grigory Fedorov-Lantukh faded into the background - Kalnysh even began to sign documents instead of the Koshevoy Ataman, and in 1762 the Ataman's mace finally fell into the hands of Kalnyshevsky.
With the rank of Koshevoy ataman, on September 12, 1762, Kalnyshevsky, together with the military clerk Ivan Globa, visited Moscow for the coronation of Catherine the Second. He makes a brilliant speech, which the queen really liked, which, however, did not help Pyotr Ivanovich hold the mace after his return. He served as koshev for a year, then the Cossacks elected Grigory Lantukh for the second time [in Russian official papers he signed himself as “Grigory Fedorov”]. There is a version that Kalnyshevsky’s removal from power occurred at the instigation of the tsarist government, which did not like the Koshevoy’s too active defense of the land interests of the Zaporozhye Sich.
In January 1765, Kalnyshevsky, contrary to the tsar’s will, again became a kosh ataman in the Sich... for more than a month, a special investigative commission from St. Petersburg had been working, investigating the manifestation of “impudent disobedience and self-will” of the Cossacks. Even the “Case of the unauthorized election of ataman Kosh of the Zaporozhye Sich Kalnyshevsky by the Cossacks” was opened, but, in connection with the prospect of a future war with Turkey, almost a decisive role was assigned to the Zaporozhye Cossacks, Empress Catherine II had to come to terms with the unauthorized election of Peter Kalnyshevsky as Koshevsky. All subsequent elections, held annually according to Zaporozhye custom, resembled a staged performance: Pyotr Ivanovich, possessing significant power, invariably remained koshev until the destruction of the Sich, that is, for ten years in a row.
According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the Sich flourished under Kalnyshevsky. There even came a time when she refused provisions from Russia - she made do with her own food. Therefore, do not believe those who claim:
as if before the German colonists, who settled the Tauride lands under Catherine II, they were in desolation. The result of the efforts of Koshevoy Kalnyshevsky was the appearance within the Cossack liberties, as researchers note, of 45 new villages, more than four thousand wintering farms, in which by 1775 about 50 thousand [!] grain growers lived. The activity of the koshov even became a proverb: “When I became a koshov in Lantukh, there was no bread for the flies, and when I became a koshov in Kalnish, there was a whole knish lying on the table.” That is, if not for the defeat of the Sich, the territories occupied by it would not have undergone any German-Mennonite colonization, as happened, but would have remained purely Ukrainian.
Historians also emphasize that the far-sighted ataman, trying to quickly populate the large deserted spaces of the Sich, contributed to the resettlement of peasants from Ukraine to free lands, thereby securing them in the jurisdiction of the Zaporozhye Kosh. Like mushrooms after the rain, farmsteads, villages and former settlements grew: Romankovo, for example, Trituznoe, Lotsmanskaya Kamenka, Polovitsa, Taromskoye, Dievka, Pereshchepino, as well as New Kodak, Staraya Samar, Nikitino. In other words, the Wild Field, which had been empty for centuries, gradually settled in, became humanized, I dare say, ceased to be wild.
The struggle for land became more and more intense. It came to the point of direct armed clashes between the Cossacks and Russian military teams, which entered Zaporozhye without proper sanctions. Kalnyshevsky was wary of the Russian government and denied any involvement in such incidents. Although the Zaporozhye colonels Garadzha, Romensky, Kulik and others who appeared in them acted, of course, on the orders of the Koshevoy.
The government demanded in vain that Kalnyshevsky arrest the daring colonels. However, the chieftain knew one piquant feature of the Russian bureaucracy [that is still inherent in it to this day, by the way]: bribes and... the provision of personal services, let’s say, had a magical effect on it.
The most prominent military leaders of the Russian Empire, Count Pyotr Panin, Prince Prozorovsky and Catherine the Second's favorite Grigory Potemkin, as a sign of their special respect for the Zaporozhian Army, asked to be enrolled in any of his kurens... as simple Cossacks. These statements were especially carefully kept in the archives. The Koshevo authorities did not expect that these “Cossacks” would share all the difficulties of the campaign along with the Siromakhs, but in the capital they could be very useful.
“Gracious father, Pyotr Ivanovich,” the future His Serene Highness Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky simply called Kalnishevsky, asking to be included as an ordinary comrade - “brother” in the Cossack register. Enrollment was carried out according to all the rules, even in compliance with the established custom of giving new nicknames to those who enrolled as Cossacks. These nicknames were most often chosen based on external signs: a person who injured his nose in a fight was called, for example, “Perebii-nos”; walking in a torn caftan through which his naked body was visible - Golopup. Sometimes, as a mockery, the lanky one was given the nickname Malyuta, and the short one - Makhina. General Grigory Potemkin, who wore a fluffed wig with curls and therefore, according to the Cossacks, never combed his hair, was recorded under the name Gritska Nechesa in the Kushchevsky kuren - the same one in which Kalnyshevsky was a member.
And at the same time, in the Sich, as we would now say, a conspiracy against the chieftain was brewing. Here, for example, is what regimental sergeant-major Pavlo Savitsky reported in his denunciation of the Koshevoy - as if he was telling his clerk: “I see that there is nothing to hope for in the Russians, but we need to write to the Turkish Emperor and, having selected 20 good Cossacks from the Army, send them with a request to accept the Army Zaporozhye is under Turkish protection, and we will write to the Army so that everyone prepares for the campaign; Let’s write that when the Russian regular army or any hussar team enters the Zaporozhye possessions, then not a single person is allowed into the borders, and if they began to enter by force, they would treat them as enemies.”
Later, Catherine the Second, who sent her horde against the Cossacks, would write: “By introducing their own agriculture, they destroyed the very basis of their dependence on Our throne and, of course, thought of forming a region in the middle of their homeland, completely independent, under their own frantic control.” And this is what else was stated in the imperial manifesto of August 14, 1775 [according to the original]: “We wanted through this to announce throughout our entire Empire for the general knowledge of all our loyal subjects that the Zaporozhye Sich has already been destroyed in the end, with extermination in the future and itself the names of the Zaporozhye Cossacks... We now considered ourselves obligated before God, before Our Empire and before humanity itself to destroy the Zaporozhye Sich and the name of the Cossacks, borrowed from it. As a result, on June 4, Our Lieutenant General Tekelii, with the troops entrusted to him from us, occupied the Zaporozhye Sich in perfect order and complete silence, without any resistance from the Cossacks... there is now no more Zaporozhian Sich in the political her ugliness, and therefore Kozakov of this name.”
When on the Trinity Day of 1775 a hundred thousand Russian army approached the Sich [since when did Muscovites choose holidays for meanness and provocations], Koshevoy Pyotr Kalnyshevsky gathered the Cossacks for a council. Ordinary Cossacks, Cossack golota, as they said then, decided, despite the tenfold superiority of the invaders, to fight them, not to give the Sich to the enemy. But the Koshe foreman and, by the way, the Zaporozhye archimandrite Vladimir convinced the Cossacks to submit to the will of the invaders and “not to shed Christian blood in vain.”
The Sich was occupied by Russian troops, the Cossacks were disarmed. On June 5, 1775, by order of General Tekeli, who led the Moscow horde to the Sich, Cossack kleynods, ensigns, ammunition, material assets and the archive of the Zaporozhye military chancellery were taken from the Sich storage facilities and taken to the field. Kleinods, military property, guns and part of the archive were later sent to St. Petersburg. All the houses in the Sich were destroyed, the gun pit was filled up. The Rich Sich Church was robbed by the Don Cossacks. Part of her treasures and the sacristy were taken to Potemkin-Nechesa in St. Petersburg.
Only a few thousand Cossacks managed to escape the encirclement and move to the mouth of the Danube [on the territory of the Ottoman Empire], where they eventually created the Transdanubian Sich.
Well, the rich Zaporozhye lands, the very territory of the former Zaporozhye liberties, which occupied a huge space - within the borders of the modern Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kirovograd, Lugansk, Kherson and Nikolaev regions, ultimately became an ordinary Russian province. A significant part of them were later divided between Russian nobles and colonists.
So what do we end up with? Here's what:
Faced with a historical choice, Koshevoy Kalnyshevsky chose not war, but... shame. Remember the textbook: if you choose shame instead of war, you will get both war and shame.
So it happened with the last ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich: he lost the Sich, which was completely destroyed, and his freedom - for as much as a quarter of a century.
And what did the once dashing steppe knight, as the Cossacks were called among the people, acquire? “The peace of mind of a humble Christian,” I recall the words from the epitaph on the Koschevoi’s grave, “who sincerely recognized his guilt.”
Comparable price?
Personally, I don't have a firm answer to this question.
Or rather, I leave the answer to myself. Although…
Yes, Koshevoy Ataman Pyotr Kalnyshevsky suffered severely from the arbitrariness of the Moscow court: no matter what you say, he spent a quarter of a century in captivity on Solovki. And he stayed there with dignity. But this was still his personal feat, which does not overshadow the betrayal, if you like, of the Sich and free Zaporozhye.
The steppe knight who became a saint [The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate declared Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky a saint back in 2008]
Register of Cossacks of the Kushchevsky kuren, in which Pyotr Kalnysh was a member
Copy of Koshevoy's gravestone, Zaporozhye, Khortitsa island
Solovetsky Monastery, modern view
Coin in honor of the last Koshevoy of the Zaporozhye Sich
Small homeland of Koshevoy Peter Kalnyshevsky
| Updated April 23, 2016. Created 13 Nov 2015 | |||||||||
Pyotr Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky was a military officer, then a judge of the Zaporozhye Grassroots Army.
In 1762, he was elected Kosh Ataman, but the same year, after a meeting in Moscow with Tsarina Catherine II, he was removed from office.
In January 1765, contrary to the royal will, the foreman again elected him koshev.
For their courage in the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, the Zaporozhye army received gratitude from the queen. Koshevoy ataman Pyotr Kalnyshevsky became a holder of the highest order of the Russian Empire - St. Andrew the First-Called, and was awarded the military rank of lieutenant general.
He defended the rights of Zaporozhye, for which he repeatedly traveled with deputations to St. Petersburg. He tried to strengthen his power and limited the rights of the elders and the Cossack Rada. He took care of the spread of agriculture and trade in the Zaporozhye steppes. It is known that Pyotr Kalnyshevsky was on friendly terms with Prince Potemkin. During 1765-1766. Koshevoy Ataman Kalnyshevsky was in St. Petersburg with a delegation of elders, among whom was the military captain Pshimich Vasily Andreevich (Pismich). The purpose of the trip was to delineate the Zaporizhian and suburban lands, and the Cossacks also filed a petition for the return of the Zaporizhian lands.
The intriguing favorite of Catherine II, Prince Potemkin, spoke at a government meeting with a project for the liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich on April 23, 1775. On June 4, according to the approved plan, a hundred thousand army under the command of Lieutenant General Pyotr Tekelia, returning from the Turkish war, surrounded the Sich, taking advantage of the fact that the Zaporozhye Army was still on the Turkish front. Lacking the strength to defend himself, Kalnyshevsky was forced to surrender the fortress without a fight.
On August 3, 1775, Catherine II issued a manifesto, which announced “that now there is no longer the Zaporozhye Sich in its political ugliness” . 6 points of the long manifesto actually boil down to accusing the Cossacks of seizing and appropriating other people's property and trying to create an independent government.
Together with the foreman, Kalnyshevsky was arrested and at the suggestion of Potemkin exiled for life to the Solovetsky Monastery. On July 30, 1776, Archimandrite Dosifei of the Solovetsky Monastery reported on the acceptance of a “state criminal.”
Solovetsky Monastery in the 18th century. became a place of imprisonment for political prisoners and religious dissidents. And the monastic brethren played the role of guards and confessors of the prisoners. Subordinate to the Holy Synod, the Solovetsky Monastery enjoyed broad autonomy and had guarantees of non-interference from the state. The archimandrite of the monastery was the complete owner of the Solovetsky archipelago, and the military command that provided security for the prisoners was subordinate to him.
Famous historian-researcher Dmitry Yavornitsky, using documents found in the Solovetsky Monastery, tried to identify the specific places where Kalnyshevsky was in prison. His general conclusion was this: “Kalnishevsky sat not in Ostrog and not in the pit of the Korozhnya tower, where the most serious criminals were kept, but in the monastery cell, the very house where all the brethren of the Monastery lived, from the archimandrite to the simple workers.” (P. 6-7). Yavornitsky separately notes that the last Koshevoy could not be kept in earthen pits, if only because, as, for example, in the Korozhnaya Tower, the pits were walled up back in 1742 (P. 11). Actually, this is confirmed by the data of the late researcher G. G. Frumenkov.
The Zaporozhye ataman belonged to “state criminals”, and not to those who committed a crime against religion and morality. Moreover, the Koshevoy was kept there as a noble prisoner. And this implied special privileges. Thus, under Archimandrite Gerasim Ionin (1793-1796), the ancient monastic charter was restored, according to which monks were prohibited from having property. All the monks ate together in the refectory. Since the prisoners were considered a kind of novices, the charter also applied to them. The exception was noble prisoners who could have their own property and even ate on the same basis as the highest clergy of the monastery.
Yavornitsky managed to find out that while in prison, Kalnyshevsky had quite a decent content: “ I saw that Kalnishevsky was kept much differently than other prisoners and convicts who were imprisoned in Solovetsky, receiving 1 ruble a day or 365-366 rubles a year.” (P. 10). , which is 40 times more than other prisoners. For example, the annual allowance for a monk is 9 rubles, for a simple prisoner from 10 to 30 rubles. This allowed the ataman to hire workers to repair casemate (cell) No. 15, the Golovlenkovsky prison, located in the Arkhangelsk Tower, where the Zaporozhye prisoner was first placed.
Such sums allowed this noble prisoner to have quite significant savings and at this expense make gifts of very valuable things to the monastery.
During his 25-year stay on Solovki, the Koshevoy changed his location at least three times.
Kalnyshevsky was guarded by 4 soldiers and an officer, although other political prisoners had 2 guards. Only three times a year - on Easter, Christmas and Transfiguration - he was taken out of his cell to participate in the Divine service, for Holy Communion and for lunch in the refectory.
Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, even when he was a chieftain, showed himself to be a very religious person. He always had Greek and South Russian monks with him, and listened to the instructions of spiritual fathers from Athos and Jerusalem. He especially distinguished himself as a zealous builder of Orthodox churches and trustee of the Kiev-Mezhigorsky Monastery; sent generous gifts to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem (chalices, paten, spoons, stars - all made of silver with gilding).
His rich gifts to the monastery also testify to Kalnyshevsky’s respect in the Solovetsky holy monastery. In 1794, he donated a silver altar cross weighing more than 30 pounds to the Transfiguration Cathedral, and at the end of his life, in honor of his liberation, he bought a Gospel with silver and gold plated weighing more than two pounds and worth 2,435 rubles and donated it to the monastery.
He behaved humbly and piously, which earned him respect from the monastic community, and until the end of his life he retained a clear mind and memory.
By decree of the new Emperor Alexander Pavlovich of April 2, 1801, he was pardoned under a general amnesty and received the right to freely choose his place of residence.
In Solovetsky imprisonment, his religiosity intensified even more and gave spiritual fruits. In response to the freedom given to him by Alexander I in 1801, the Koshevoy replies that “Here I enjoy it (freedom) to the fullest.” Apparently, he achieved the spiritual freedom that every Orthodox Christian strives to achieve.
Peter Kalnyshevsky asked to leave him in the holy monastery: “To devote the rest of my days to serving the One God in this blissful solitude, to which, after twenty-five years of my stay here, I became absolutely accustomed, in this monastery to await with a calm spirit the end of my life.”
On October 31, 1803, in peace with people and God, the last Zaporozhye Koshevoy ataman died. The special veneration of the brethren of the monastery of Peter Kalnishevsky is evidenced by the fact that he was buried in a place of honor - the southern courtyard of the Transfiguration Cathedral at the Assumption Church, next to the famous spiritual and political figure of the Time of Troubles, the Monk Abraham Palitsyn and the Solovetsky Archimandrite Theodoret. And in 1856, by decree of the archimandrite, a slab with an epitaph was installed on Kalnyshevsky’s grave and contains a brief biography of the ataman.
«
Here the body of the deceased Koshevoy of the once formidable Zaporozhye Sich of Cossacks, Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky, who was exiled to this monastery by the Highest command in 1776 for humility, is buried in Bose. In 1801, by order of the Highest, he was again released, but he himself did not want to leave the monastery, in which he found the peace of mind of a humble Christian who sincerely recognized his guilt. He died in 1803, October 31, on Saturday, 112 years old, a pious, kind death.»
Icon of the Most Holy Protection of the Mother of God from the 18th century. Below in the right corner is the last Koshe chieftain of the Zaporozhye Sich, Peter Kalnyshevsky. 
The request to glorify Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky as a saint was expressed by the Cossack atamans and their confessors of the UOC at a meeting with Zaporozhye Archbishop Luka (Kovalenko), which took place on August 31 as part of a meeting of the Council of Atamans of Ukraine.
In turn, Archbishop Luka of Zaporozhye and Melitopol, as the head of the relevant Synodal Department, noted that another step has been taken towards strengthening the Ukrainian Cossacks. “The unification will become irreversible when every Cossack realizes the importance of the Orthodox faith in his life” , - added the bishop.
Materials on the canonization of the Koshe Ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, Peter Kalnyshevsky, were submitted for consideration to the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
On January 23, 2014, the remaining father of the Zporozka Sich, Peter Kalnishevsky, was canonized.
prepared by Vasil Zdubich
Wikoristan materials from Dmitry Yavornitsky, Alexy Chaplin, director of the Institute of Survival Studies Vladislav Gribovsky.
On December 6, Ukraine celebrates Armed Forces Day. We have already written about. More recently, our fellow countryman, the last Koshevoy Ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, joined the list of holy warriors.
Koshevoy Ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich
Peter Kalnyshevsky born in 1691 into a Cossack family in the Sumy region. Further, although not numerous, data about him dates back to the middle of the 18th century, from which it is known that the Cossack was an educated person at that time who loved to read books.
In 1762, Peter was elected Koshevoy Ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich for the first time. In the same year, in Moscow, he met with Empress Catherine II. Apparently she didn’t like the chieftain, because he was soon removed from his post, having held it for less than a year.
He was elected a second time in 1765. This time, Peter Kalnyshevsky was at the head of the Sich for 10 years - until its destruction on the orders of Empress Catherine. It is worth noting that previously no one had been elected for such a long term - usually the Koshevoy Ataman was in his position from a year to a maximum of several years.
War between Russia and Turkey
During the war between Russia and Turkey in 1768-1774, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky took part in the battles near Khadzhibey (present-day Odessa) and was awarded the highest award of the Russian Empire - the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called and the rank of lieutenant general.
The last Zaporizhzhya Koshevoy was a very religious man and helped Ukrainian monasteries and churches a lot. Over the course of his entire life, using his personal funds alone, he built a dozen churches in his native Sumy region, in Kyiv and Zaporozhye. In addition, he devoted a lot of attention and resources to social issues. Within the boundaries of the “Liberties of the Zaporozhian Army” there were 16 churches. Each of them had parochial schools and advanced schools. Also at the temples there were hospitals for the infirm, the elderly and the sick, which were maintained at the expense of the holy ataman.
Tragedy of the Zaporozhye Sich
In addition to external work, Kalnyshevsky also took paternal care of the Sich itself - on the one hand, he tried to preserve all the privileges of the Cossacks, and on the other, to adapt the Cossack way of life to the new realities of existence on the territory of the Russian Empire. The Koshevoy Ataman raised the material level of the Zaporozhye Sich. In addition, Cossack traditions were supported - love of freedom and democracy.
All this freedom greatly irritated the imperial throne, since it considered the Zaporozhye Sich to be a kind of state within a state, and even a democratic one. Fearing such rule of people in other regions of the Russian Empire, the Sich was destroyed by order of Catherine II. Although there were other reasons. In the eyes of Russian nobles, the richest Zaporozhye lands were a place where robbers and rebels lived.
In the summer of 1775, a 100,000-strong Russian army surrounded the Sich, where at that time there were several hundred people, and the rest were employed on farms. Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, who was then over 80 years old, understood the hopelessness of the situation, and despite the fact that the Cossacks were eager to defend their home, he did not want Christian blood to be shed and ordered to surrender their weapons and not offer resistance.
Solovetsky Monastery
The ataman and the foreman were exiled to the Solovetsky Monastery in the very north of Russia. Here, in harsh conditions of imprisonment, Saint Peter spent more than 25 years. His cell, measuring less than 3 by 2 meters, was located in a damp semi-basement. The air in it was musty, which caused suffocation. Little light came into the dungeon, and the view through the small window looked out onto the monastery cemetery. The regime of detention was also quite strict. According to unconfirmed reports, the righteous man was taken from his cell to the church three times a year: on Easter, Christmas and Transfiguration.
The last Koshevoy ataman was released only in 1801, when he was already 110 years old. During the years of imprisonment, he lost his sight and grew a long beard and hair. However, Peter did not take off his Cossack clothes, which by that time began to fall apart. At the same time, the ataman was respected among the local monks.
After his release, he was given freedom of choice regarding his place of settlement. However, the elder remained in the Solovetsky Monastery, where he died in 1803.
The question of the canonization of Peter Kalnyshevsky has been raised for several years now. At this time, information about his biography was collected and studied. In 2008, he was canonized as a saint by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church decided to canonize the ataman in 2014; the solemn glorification as a saint took place in the Intercession Cathedral in the city of Zaporozhye on November 13, 2015. During the service, an icon of St. Peter of Kalnyshevsky, painted for this event, was brought to the center of the church. Part of the saint's relics is inserted into the icon. By the way, since the ataman was buried on the territory of the Solovetsky Monastery, where his relics rest now, at this time their transfer to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is unlikely.
Holy Cossack Peter Kalnyshevsky updated: December 6, 2015 by: Misha Gerasimenko
Published 11/16/2017 · Updated 11/16/2017
In the Lives of the Saints there are many wonderful examples of how an elder becomes a holy elder, how a judge becomes a holy judge, how a warrior becomes a holy warrior, how an official becomes a holy official, how a merchant becomes a holy merchant, how a monk becomes a holy monk, how a state a leader becomes a holy statesman, as a rich man becomes a holy rich man, as a slave becomes a holy slave, as a master becomes a holy master,” notes the Monk Justin (Popovich) of Cheli. In his life, Pyotr Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky was in all these qualities: a warrior, a military judge, a chieftain, an administrator, an official, a merchant, a landowner, a rich man, an all-powerful master, a prisoner deprived of all rights, an elder and, finally, a monk. But he always remained a Zaporozhye Cossack and an Orthodox Christian, completely entrusting himself to the will of God. In the life of the righteous Zaporozhye ataman, we see how a Cossack can become a holy Cossack, no matter what activities he has to engage in, no matter what his life circumstances are.
All secular historians who study his life and work write about the deep Orthodox faith of Peter Kalnyshevsky. The Orthodox faith was the core of the life of the last Koschevo. Coming, as one assumes, from the clergy, Pyotr Ivanovich loved Orthodox worship and understood its intricacies. In the positions of a military judge and especially a chieftain, he became famous as a generous benefactor of churches and a builder of temples, which he often erected exclusively at his own expense. His name is associated not only with the construction of churches in the densely populated Hetmanate, but also with the arrangement of Christian churches in the steppe zone of Zaporozhye, populated through his efforts by Orthodox people. It was thanks to him that an orderly church organization arose in the Zaporozhye region, spreading its spiritual power far into the depths of the former nomadic steppe.
Petr Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky born 1691. Regarding his origin, researchers disagree: there are suggestions that his father Ivan Kalnysh (Kalnyshevsky) was from the Cossacks; according to other versions, he belonged to the clergy or was a Podolian nobleman.
No later than the 1740s, he arrived in the Zaporozhye Sich, where he was enrolled in the Kushchevsky kuren. The first indication of the activities of P. Kalnyshevsky in Zaporozhye dates back to 1750-1752, when he, with the rank of military captain, was an assistant to the then Koshevoy, the elderly Grigory Fedorov, in the fight against the Haidamaks - rebel detachments operating on the lands of Right Bank Ukraine in the 18th century .
In 1755, he participated in a deputation sent to St. Petersburg for “certain military needs” - mainly to work for the return of lands seized by its neighbors to Zaporozhye. Returning to Zaporozhye in 1756, Kalnyshevsky was soon elected as a military judge, but did not remain in this rank for long, about a year, and in 1758 he again participated in a deputation sent to St. Petersburg for the same purpose as the previous one. But both of them did not lead to favorable results.
Upon his return in 1760, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky was again briefly elected as a military judge and remained in this rank until 1762, until his election as Kosh chieftain. After this, he again went to Moscow as part of the delegation of the Zaporozhye Sich to attend the coronation of Empress Catherine II.
In 1763, Kalnyshevsky, under the influence of the Zaporozhye “golota”, was removed from the atamanship; The elections the following year were also unsuccessful for him.
In 1763, he went on a pilgrimage to Kyiv, where he received an icon of St. as a blessing from the Kyiv Metropolitan Arseny of Mogilyansky. relics.
For the second time, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky was elected Kosh Ataman on January 1, 1765 and remained in this rank for 10 years until the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich in 1775. This was the only example of such a long reign in the entire history of the Sich.
The spiritual life of Peter Kalnyshevsky is evidenced by his exceptional role in the appearance of the miraculous “Novokaidak” (Samara) icon of the Mother of God.
An important reason why the Cossacks have long revered the Mother of God was the celibacy that the Sich community adhered to. The Cossacks, having prohibited women from staying in the Sich, placed themselves under the protection of the Mother of God - the Most Pure and Immaculate Virgin Mary, who always remained the Ever-Virgin.
The Mother of God, glorifying her Cossacks, showed Zaporozhye intercession in the miraculous icon of the Samara Mother of God. The type of icon - “Our Lady of Sorrows” - most fully reflects the true image of the Cossacks, ready at any moment to sacrifice their lives for the faith and the Fatherland.
Many wondrous signs and miracles emanating from the Novokaidak miraculous icon of the Mother of God attracted a huge number of pious pilgrims from various places of Holy Rus', Poland, Greece, Georgia, there were also envoys from Athos and Constantinople. Rich and poor, noble and simple, warriors and generals, sick and healthy, came here, seeking spiritual consolation and relief from their sorrows.
The fame of the icon’s miracles spread not only in Zaporozhye, but throughout Ukraine. In 1770, the rector of the New Kaydak Church, Fyodor Fomich, submitted an official application for a miraculous icon.
Peter Kalnyshevsky gave instructions to collect information about the miraculous icon to the Starokodatsky Zaporozhye spiritual administration, headed by Archpriest Grigory Prokhorenko. Its first description, its history, miracles and signs were collected. By order of Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky, this image was transferred from the altar and installed in a specially made icon case in the middle of the church, which was an open recognition of the miraculous icon.
On December 30, 1772, the miraculous icon was dressed in a silver and gold frame with the money of Peter Kalnyshevsky, decorated with pearls and sapphires, which is why the people also acquired the name - the icon of Kalnyshevsky. From that same year, all the Cossack elders regularly gathered in the church for the Presentation of the Lord, performing a solemn prayer service before the Miraculous Icon of the Mother of God.
For many years, righteous Peter Kalnyshevsky communicated with the Monk Paisius Velichkovsky, actively helping the Athonite brotherhood of Elder Paisius financially on the Holy Mountain and in Moldova. The surviving letters of the Monk Paisius to the righteous Peter Kalnyshevsky convey evidence of Kalnyshevsky’s virtues, support and teachings of the saint to the “Christ-loving army.” The last leader of the Zaporozhye Cossacks was also the ktitor of the Athonite Cossack monastery “Black Vir”, the St. Elias monastery, the Simonopetra monastery on Athos and the Dragomirna monastery in Romania, and other monasteries and temples. He also gave generous donations to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
“A crown in heaven” was predicted to Peter Kalnyshevsky by St. Paisiy Velichkovsky (cm.: ).
Russian-Turkish War and the end of the Zaporozhye Sich
During the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774. P. Kalnyshevsky and the Cossacks acted in the army of Count Rumyantsev and repelled Turkish raids on the Zaporozhye lands along the Bug River. In 1770, he received a gold medal with a portrait of the empress, showered with diamonds.
In the Sich at this time, a conspiracy was hatched to kill Ataman Kalnyshevsky and the military foreman and go over to the side of the Turks, but the plan was discovered and the perpetrators were severely punished.
Simultaneously with his participation in hostilities, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky was busy governing Zaporozhye; He repeatedly traveled around its vast lands, which he tried to colonize, inviting for this purpose not only Little Russians, but also Moldovans and Bulgarians from New Serbia and Poland, and settled settlers along the Dnieper. Villages, farmsteads and winter huts were established on the Zaporozhye steppes.
The conclusion of the peace treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardzhi between Russia and the Ottoman Empire on July 10 (21), 1774 turned out to be fatal for Zaporozhye: a year later it was destroyed.
Arrest and imprisonment
On June 4, 1775, the Zaporozhye Sich was surrounded by troops under the command of General Tekeli and then cashed out. Peter Kalnyshevsky and Archimandrite Vladimir (Sokalsky) were able to keep the Cossacks from armed resistance.
In the tragic days of the liquidation of the Zaporozhye Sich, the last Zaporozhye ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky remained faithful to the Christian commandments. When the majority of the Cossacks insisted that the Koshevoy give the command to fight off the Russian troops, Kalnyshevsky, remembering the Gospel commandment about peacemaking, kept the Cossacks from shedding the blood of their co-religionists, and the outcome took on a peaceful character. By this he saved the lives of hundreds of Cossacks, who were later able to revive the Cossacks on the Danube and Kuban.
Pyotr Ivanovich himself, despite the order not to resist, was nevertheless arrested and taken under escort to St. Petersburg to the Military Office, where he remained in custody for about a year. At first he was supposed to be executed, but on May 4, 1776, the death penalty was replaced by eternal imprisonment in a monastery.
The Solovetsky Monastery was chosen as the place of imprisonment.
On July 11, 1776, Peter Kalnyshevsky was secretly taken under escort to Arkhangelsk, and on July 29 to Solovki, where he was handed over to Archimandrite Dosifei. On Solovki, Kalnyshevsky was imprisoned for 25 years; At first he was placed in a prison cell, and then in cells.
All the spiritual strength of the Christian nature of the last Zaporozhye Koshevoy was manifested in the humble and resigned acceptance of his cross from the Lord during the period of Solovetsky imprisonment. Even in his declining years, he remembered his jailer, Tsarina Catherine II, as “the blessed and eternally worthy of memory, the All-August Empress, the Great Catherine.” In the monastery, Kalnyshevsky was treated strictly throughout his Solovetsky imprisonment: he was kept in the monastery without release and was removed not only from correspondence, but also from any communication with strangers. This situation did not change until 1801. Only the sanctity of life in such conditions can protect a person from degradation. And the fact that his lifestyle was reclusive is also evidenced by his questions to the peasants who happened to be on Solovki: “Who is the king now? How do the kings live today, and what kind of prosperity is there in Rus' now?” How much do these questions and this “holy curiosity” resemble the questions of the Venerable Mary of Egypt to Abba Zosima: “Tell me, father, how do Christians, the king and the holy churches live now?”
The conditions of Kalnyshevsky's detention were extremely strict and difficult morally and spiritually, but materially quite bearable and comfortable, as evidenced by the rich gifts that Peter Ivanovich, following his God-loving disposition, presented to the Solovetsky monastery (only the cost of valuable gifts to the monastery amounted to half of all funds allocated for maintenance Zaporozhye Koshevoy, and how much was distributed by Pyotr Ivanovich in alms - only God knows).
The Solovetsky Cross of Peter Kalnyshevsky is the moral suffering of a man innocently accused, deprived of all civil rights and freedoms and imprisoned. In this, the Christian feat of faith of Peter Kalnyshevsky can be compared with the feat of faith of the Old Testament Job the Long-Suffering.
And indeed, the last Koshevoy ataman perceived the place of his grief as a place of spiritual achievement. It was a tradition among the Cossacks that if they did not die in the war, they often went to end the days of their earthly life, performing spiritual deeds in a monastery. Apparently, at one time Pyotr Kalnyshevsky also prepared such a death for himself, while he was still a chieftain. Therefore, with a calm spirit, Peter Ivanovich accepted the will of God when, by royal decree, he was imprisoned in a monastery, where his soul was already longing.
Imprisonment in the Solovetsky Monastery made Kalnyshevsky even more pious and ascetic; According to the authorities, he lived extremely quietly and calmly, zealously performing the rituals required by the Orthodox Church, regularly confessed and received communion.
Liberation and last years of life
In response to Alexander I granting him freedom, Koshevoy wrote that “here (in the Solovetsky Monastery) I enjoy it (freedom) to the fullest.” Thus, according to the testimony of Peter Ivanovich himself, at the end of his life he achieved that spiritual freedom to which every Orthodox Christian strives. Not wanting to leave the monastery, after being pardoned by Emperor Alexander I in 1801, the former ataman asked to be left “in this monastery to await with a calm spirit the approaching end of his life” in order to “devote the rest of his days in serving the One God in this blissful solitude, to which After twenty-five years of my stay here, I got used to it completely.”
Following the old Zaporozhye custom, Peter Kalnyshevsky remained to live out his life in an Orthodox monastery. His pious life and outspoken piety, without a doubt, inspired the sincere respect of the monastic brethren. Having received freedom, Peter Ivanovich became a simple novice of the Solovetsky monastery and, having lived two years in freedom, died in peace with people and God “a pious death” on November 13 (October 31, old style) 1803. The last Koshevoy ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich was buried in a place of honor - the southern courtyard of the Transfiguration Cathedral, next to the graves of prominent statesman and church leaders of the early 17th century Abraham Palitsyn and Solovetsky Archimandrite Theodorit. On the slab laid on his grave in 1856 by Archimandrite Alexander (Pavlovich, later Bishop of Poltava and Pereyaslavl), it is said that Peter Kalnyshevsky died at the age of 112.
In one of his last letters to Peter Kalnyshevsky for 1772, the Monk Paisiy Velichkovsky, addressing the future martyr, prophetically ended with these words: “Christ will build for you an eternal temple not made with hands in heaven, for the decoration of the monasteries he will decorate your soul with an unfading crown, for the clothing of naked people He will clothe your soul with incorruptible clothing of Christ and make you worthy in His heavenly devil to eternally enjoy His divine glory.”
Pyotr Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky at the age of 85 years. The portrait was created based on historical verbal descriptions. Artist Sergey Andreevich Litvinov, 2001.
Pyotr Ivanovich Kalnyshevsky, Ukrainian Petron Ivanovich Kalnishevsky (1691, village of Pustovoitovka, now Romensky district, Sumy region - October 31, 1803, Solovetsky Monastery) - Koshevoy ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, came from the gentry of the Lubensky regiment.
85-year-old Kalnyshevsky was arrested and first kept in Moscow, in the office of the Military Collegium, and then was sent to the Solovetsky Monastery, where he spent about 28 years in a cold cell measuring 1 by 3 m. Kalnyshevsky was released from the cell into fresh air three times a year : on the holidays of Christmas, Easter and Transfiguration.
Oh, what was this indescribable gathering of Solovetsky!..
The last ataman of the Zaporozhye Sich, Pyotr Kalnyshevsky, sentenced by Catherine II's favorite Prince Potemkin, marched here with six carts of property. And on top of the gold and silver are the tears of all his brothers and sons. All together, the brotherhood of invincible and immortal warriors of the Order of the Most Pure One, three thousand fiery horsemen in spirit, followed Ataman Peter Kalnyshevsky. God blessed him with twenty-five years of solitary confinement so that there would be someone to sing the funeral service for the Cossack brotherhood of the Zaporozhye Sich.
The Cossacks, it happened, died, thrown on the edges of the peaks, chanting God and with a smile on their faces, like the ancient martyrs. What kind of Russian is a person if pain does not overcome him?.. What kind of a Russian is if a bullet takes him?..
According to the archives, Ataman Peter, released at the age of one hundred and ten, refused to return to freedom from Solovki. He wished that the Zaporozhye Sich would remain with him on Solovki and join the secret of the coming world. And when, shortly before his death, he presented the Solovetsky Monastery with a silver Gospel in gold worth 2,400 rubles (about half a million dollars), he presented a Cossack ark and an invincible throne, before which the Cossacks swore an oath before battle. There was no case that after swearing an oath to this fiery Gospel they lost even one battle. And to this day this scroll of the Zaporozhye Sich rests on the mystical Solovetsky altar as a sign of the invincibility of its armies.
If the Koshevoi had left Solovki, the Zaporozhye Sich would have left the Solovetsky gold mines. But God wished for increasing glory, so that from here, from Solovki, the army of Elijah and Enoch would begin a victorious march through all the cities of Holy Rus'. Here it is, the great Solovetsky gathering! Three thousand crowns for his assistants, and a great one for him, for his perseverance and tears. Fire wedding!
Ataman Peter did not eat earthly food for weeks and months. I asked him not to touch him. I asked the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod for special permission to lock the camera. The glorious history of the Zaporozhye Sich passed before his eyes, and children flocked to the great father to bow, under the blessing: ‘Forgive me, father, forgive your sins. God is in your face. Join Enoch and Elijah to the eternal army.
Our holy father Peter Kalnishevsky would not have exchanged the mansion of his solitary confinement cell on Solovki for any luxurious count estates and palaces. He sat on a stone, leaning on a rusty ring (the Old Believer was tied to it like a dog on a cast-iron chain), and wrote something with a quill pen. Angels came and took a white scroll from the hands of Ataman Kalnishevsky: a letter not in ink, but in tears. About the victories of the immortal army in Zaporozhye, near Poltava, near Krivoy Rog... All victories rushed to Solovki.