Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Oct 2022)
Special Detachment for the Protection of Members of the Imperial Family in the Crimea in October, 1918 — April, 1919
Abstract
This essay on the history of creation and functioning of the “Special Purpose Detachment for the Protection of Persons of the Imperial Family in Crimea” written after World War II by Colonel Sergey Alexandrovich Apukhtin, Assistant Commander of the Detachment, is dedicated to the events of the last period of stay of the Russian Imperial family members in their Crimean possessions in October, 1918 — April, 1919. Until now, there has been practically no mention in the press about the activities of this Detachment, which arose with minimal assistance of the Volunteer Army; and its members rarely spoke about those days, fulfilling a mutual agreement. Little was known about the conditions for the formation, the personnel and strength of the Detachment, the security principles as well as conditions for its deployment, supply, and service specifics including contacts with the outside world: from the Germans, recent enemies, and then assistants, to the civilian population; the relations of the Detachment members with the highest persons protected by them were also not covered. The creation of the “Special Purpose Detachment” was the result of a private initiative of half a dozen officers of the Imperial Russian Army, in their large part aristocrats from hereditary military families, who stayed loyal to the oath. According to many of their contemporaries, both Russians and foreigners, the happy rescue of the Russian Empress, her daughters and other members of the Imperial family from inevitable death in the “happiest country in the world” became the first stage of a tangible failure of Bolsheviks, which began to manifest itself with the successful evacuation of parts of the Russian army of Wrangel and constantly reminded of itself until the inevitable disappearance of the Communist state. As a result of these two evacuations, as well as subsequent, less significant ones, a small but free Russia was formed outside the Soviet territory, stubbornly declaring to the whole world about the unwillingness and impossibility for a huge number of Russian citizens of all classes to recognize the anti-Christian state organism that arose in their Fatherland. In this regard, of great interest is the testimony of the author of memoirs about the exceptionally benevolent attitude of the local indigenous population, and first of all the Crimean Tatars, towards the Imperial family and their guards, and about sharp rejection of Bolsheviks by a significant part of the population of the peninsula, which never became Soviet in the generally accepted meaning of this word. The published document significantly complements the picture of the Crimean life of the Imperial family persons, described in detail by Empress Maria Feodorovna in her most interesting Diary, which has become widely known.
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