Exactly two hundred years ago, on April 28, 1813, Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov passed away in the Prussian city of Bunzlau (now Polish Boleslavets). He was sixty-seven years old. There is no doubt that this death in the history of Russia will remain unforgettable. After all, he left this world on the crest of world fame: the name of Kutuzov in those days was repeated daily not only in Russia, but also in France, England, Germany ...

In front of the tomb of the saint
I stand with a bowed head ...
Everything is sleeping around; only lamps
In the darkness of the temple they gild
Pillars of granite masses
And their banners hanging row.
Under them this lord sleeps,
This idol of the northern squads,
The venerable guardian of the sovereign country,
Subduer of all her enemies,
This rest of the glorious flock
Catherine's Eagles.
In your coffin delight lives!
He gives us a Russian voice;
He tells us about that year,
When the voice of the people's faith
I called out to your holy gray hair:
"Go save!" You got up - and saved ...
Listen well and today our faithful voice,
Rise up and save the king and us
O formidable old man! For a moment
Appear at the door of the grave,
Appear, inhale delight and zeal
The shelves you left behind!
Appear and your hand
Show us the leaders in the crowd,
Who is your heir, your chosen one!
But the temple is immersed in silence,
And quiet is your warlike grave
Unperturbed, eternal sleep...

A.S. Pushkin

Pushkin here, as always, showed himself to be a wise historian, prone to pathetic analytics.

He paid tribute to Kutuzov - a mysterious hero, in many ways - misunderstood.

In 1813, the wounded field marshal met with laurels the savior of the Fatherland. He himself, perhaps, did not expect such a resounding success, and overwork affected his weakened health. He failed to defeat Bonaparte in a general battle, but the old commander managed to outwit the dangerous enemy. The expulsion of the French from the Fatherland cost Russia dearly: looted, desecrated Moscow smoked behind the backs of the army. It was Kutuzov who decided to give up Moscow without a general battle - for this he was considered both a wise man and a traitor.

"Smart, smart! Cunning, cunning! He and De Ribas will not deceive! Suvorov used to say about Kutuzov.

Under Izmail, Kutuzov showed himself to be a brave and strong-willed general. By order of Suvorov, he went to his death without hesitation - and survived, became "the right hand of the commander on the left flank." Suvorov said: "Military virtues are: for a soldier - courage, for an officer - courage, for a general - valor." Kutuzov, so unlike his teacher, passed all these stages with honor. He - the commander - was reproached for indecision. At the head of the army, he acted not as a grunt, but rather as a diplomat and diligent manager. The offensive tactics inherent in the Russian army, Kutuzov rejected not only in the confrontation with Napoleon, who was widely considered invincible. But in December 1812, Kutuzov received a convincing advantage over the skeptics: Grand Army, invading Russia, disappeared. Napoleon fled. Russian troops pursued the expelled, retreating enemy. Kutuzov did not want to rush headlong into a new campaign, although he realized that Napoleon would have to be finished off. He intended to do this with the serious participation of the Germans and the British, who loved (and which politician does not like this?) To rake in the heat with the wrong hands. About Britain, Kutuzov used to say for a long time: “If tomorrow this island goes to the bottom, I won’t groan.” He did not consider himself a citizen of the world, devoutly served the interests of Russia, which he invariably understood in his own way.
In addition, Kutuzov understood better than anyone that the army needed a respite. He never forgot about the health of the soldiers and the daily bread for the army, and these problems were acute in the campaigns of 1812-13.
In previous years, several times he miraculously escaped death. But in Prussian Silesia, on his last campaign, he caught a cold after a long ride.

Kutuzov hurried to Dresden, the capital of Saxony. Hurry - against his custom to do everything slowly. In impatience, he jumped out of the carriage onto a dashing horse and galloped on horseback. Raw spring showed deceit ...

He could not continue the campaign and remained in Bunzlau. The best doctors, sent by the King of Prussia and the Emperor of All Russia, fussed around Prince Smolensky. He glanced at their efforts with a bitter smile. In Germany, Kutuzov was enthusiastically treated. It is not without reason that a portrait of a Russian field marshal with a bandage on his face can be seen in the Goethe Museum in Weimar: they saw a liberator in Kutuzov. His propaganda messages to the German patriots really stirred up many. Now Germany respectfully sympathized with the mortally ill commander. Kutuzov lay in bed for ten days.

In a letter to his wife dated April 11, the field marshal wrote: “I am writing to you, my friend, for the first time with someone else’s hand, which will surprise you, and maybe even scare you - a disease of such a kind that the sensitivity of the fingers has been lost in the right hand ... Forgive me, my friend". The wife really was his friend, trust and understanding accompanied them family life. He expressed his most frank thoughts in letters to his wife - a rare case both in those times and in ours.

Alexander I, who never trusted the old commander, nevertheless visited the hopelessly ill Kutuzov. The following legend has been preserved: bending over his bed, the king asked:

– Mikhail Illarionovich, will you forgive me?

Raising his heavy, inflamed eyelids, Kutuzov said quietly:
- I forgive you, sovereign, but Russia is unlikely to forgive ...

What is the meaning of this dialogue? Kutuzov's associates believed that the interlocutors remembered that the tsar had put pressure on the field marshal more than once, forcing him to make the wrong decisions. First of all, they remembered Austerlitz. However, a legend is a legend.

“The sunset of his days was beautiful, like the sunset of a star that lit up a magnificent day during its course; but it was impossible to watch without particular regret how our famous leader was fading away, when, during ailments, the deliverer of Russia gave me orders, lying in bed, in such a weak voice that it was hardly possible to hear his words. However, his memory was very fresh, and he repeatedly dictated to me several pages non-stop, ”recalled the adjutant of the field marshal, the wonderful military writer A.I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky.
April 16, 1813 the heart of the great commander stopped.

The army was not immediately informed of Kutuzov's illness and death. They were afraid that the bitter news would defuse the troops in a difficult campaign.

They mourned him sincerely. In a soldier’s song composed for Kutuzov’s death, it is said about the setting sun: “How did our father, Kutuzov the Prince, depart from us, from the soldiers! .. The Russian, Christian army burst into tears, tearfully wept! How not to cry for us, not to grieve, we have no father, no Kutuzov! I recalled all the best things associated with Kutuzov: “And how he bowed to the soldiers, how he showed his gray hairs, we, the soldiers, all shouted hurray in one voice! God is with us! and we go on a hike, clover." So the soldiers recalled the appearance of Kutuzov in front of the army in Tsarev-Zaimishche, near the Old Smolensk road.

The authors of the song spoke quite realistically about the difficulties of the campaign: “Oh, and the winter didn’t chill us and the lack of bread didn’t twist: they only thought how to drive the villains out of their native lands, the Russians.”
Here's the mystery: Kutuzov was accused of inactivity and not unreasonably. But now he was gone - and the place of the commander, by and large, remained vacant. Kutuzov was respected even if they hated him.
The man whom Catherine herself called "my general" was gone. The old trickster, whom Bonaparte called the gray fox of the North, is gone. He was not so much a commander (although Kutuzov's experience remained indispensable in tactical matters), but a symbol of the army. And no one managed to replace Kutuzov.

He has never been the undisputed authority of the generals, he has forever a difficult reputation. There are too many controversial, ambiguous things in Kutuzov's habits and actions. And yet there was no leader equal to him. The great thing is experience and reputation.

In the city where the great Russian commander died, an obelisk was erected with the inscription: “Prince Kutuzov-Smolensky brought the victorious Russian troops to this place, but here death put a limit glorious days his. He saved his Fatherland and opened the way to the deliverance of Europe. May the hero's memory be blessed."

The body of the commander was immediately embalmed for shipment to Russia. Some of the remains were buried in a quiet cemetery, two kilometers from Bunzlau. There is a legend that Kutuzov's heart rests there. This is not true. Indeed, according to the will of the commander, the heart was placed in a special flask. But she followed to Petersburg along with the coffin. There is also such a legend: the doctor, an Orthodox man, refused to separate the heart from the corpse - and played a trick, left the heart in place, and placed something else in the flask. The tradition of burying the heart separately is pagan, popular among Masons as well. This is how Byron was buried. There is nothing romantic in this, in my opinion - a whim, and nothing more.

Often, again and again, one hears: Kutuzov quite consciously asked to bury his heart in Prussia: “Let my ashes be taken to their homeland, and my heart will be buried here, by the Saxon road, so that my soldiers, the sons of Russia, know that my heart remains with them.

The legend was checked in the 1930s, during the reign of Kirov in Leningrad. They opened the Kutuzovsky crypt in the Kazan Cathedral. In the center of the crypt stood a sarcophagus. They moved the slab and saw the ashes of the commander. By that time, Kutuzov's body had already completely decayed. And at the head on the left was an ancient silver vessel of a cylindrical shape. Mystery!
With great learning managed to unscrew the lid. The container was filled with some kind of transparent liquid, in which, as witnesses of the experiment assure, one could see a well-preserved heart. It is buried in Russia! Alas, the soldiers of the Red Army, the fighters of Rokossovsky, who liberated Boleslavets, did not know about this. They were inspired by the legend of Kutuzov's heart buried in Silesia. Poems and songs were composed about this, and the words carved on the monument speak of a heart buried here.

Among other people's plains, leading to the right feat
The harsh structure of their regiments,
You are the immortal monument of Russian glory
Raised on my own heart.
But the commander's heart did not fall silent,
And in a terrible hour it calls to battle,
It lives and fights courageously
In the sons of the Fatherland, saved by you!
And now, passing along the battle trail
Your banners that flew through the smoke
Banners of our own victory
We bow to your heart! -

These words are our memory of both Kutuzov and the heroes of 1945. Forgivable, light delusion. However, the question of the burial places of Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov is fraught with many mysteries - is it worth stirring up the remains again and again?

Prussia Prussia, and in Russian Empire the funeral of the savior of the Fatherland turned out to be loud. When the funeral procession arrived on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, it was met by an excited crowd of citizens. The inhabitants of the capital unharnessed six horses and on their own hump rolled a carriage with the coffin of the field marshal from the Narva Gates to the Kazan Cathedral. The recently rebuilt cathedral became a symbol of resistance to Napoleon, a symbol of victory in the war of 1812. It is symbolic that they said goodbye to Kutuzov exactly there, where they were buried ...

The parting of the Petersburgers with the ashes of Kutuzov lasted two days. He was buried on June 13, 1813 at the western wall of the northern aisle of the cathedral. A bronze fence was erected over the grave, designed by A. Voronikhin, the icon of the Smolensk Mother of God was installed and the coat of arms of the Most Serene Prince of Smolensk was strengthened. Nearby, 5 standards and one banner, which have survived to this day, are fortified. Later, a painting by the artist Alekseev “The Miracle of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow” was installed over the grave. It depicts an event from the history of Russian military glory- the liberation of Moscow by the militia under the leadership of Minin and Prince Pozharsky in October 1612 with the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. Kutuzov also prayed before this icon in 1812, and he often remembered Pozharsky. After all, the two saviors of Russia had a common ancestor - Vasily Beklemishev.

Alexander I, having relented after the death of the old man, in a letter to the wife of Mikhail Illarionovich wrote about the commander: “A painful loss not for you alone, but for the whole fatherland! … his name and deeds will remain immortal. The grateful fatherland will never forget his merits. Europe and the whole world will not cease to be amazed at him, and will make his name among the most famous commanders. In honor of him, a monument will be erected, in which the Russian, looking at the sculpted image of him, will be proud, while the stranger will respect the land that gives birth only to great men.

The memory of Kutuzov was surrounded by reverence, although it is believed that the emperor still treated the commander coldly and did not contribute to his national glory. And he deserves fame - a soldier who did not bow to bullets, a successful commander, a witty interlocutor, a bright political thinker. Undoubtedly one of wise people of his time.
In memory of the Odyssey of the Russian army, the wise politician and fearless officer, military trumpets are crying today.

And the campaign of 1813 continued, the most dangerous trials awaited the army.

GRAVE M.I. KUTUZOV IN THE KAZAN CATHEDRAL

After an 11-day illness, on April 16, 1813, Field Marshal M.I. died in the city of Bunzlau. Kutuzov. The body of the famous commander was embalmed and placed in a zinc coffin, a small vessel was placed on the left side of the head, in which was the embalmed heart of M.I. Kutuzov. On April 27, a funeral procession with a coffin mounted on a chariot, which was harnessed by six horses, headed for St. Petersburg. This mournful procession lasted a month and a half, and solemn meetings and farewells with speeches and cannon salutes were arranged along the entire route of the funeral cortege. Residents of cities and surrounding villages unharnessed their horses and drove the chariot on themselves, strewn the path with fresh flowers.

On May 24, the procession arrived at the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage, located near Strelna - 15 miles from St. Petersburg. Here she was met by relatives and friends of the deceased and the clergy of the monastery. The ark with the body of M.I. Kutuzov was brought into the church and placed on the pulpit, after which the service began, and then the ark was placed in the prepared coffin and placed in the middle of the church - on the pulpit under a canopy. Orders and other insignia, which M.I. was awarded, were placed on stools around the pulpit. Kutuzov. While the body of the field marshal was in the monastery, the psalter was read and a daily memorial service was served for the deceased.

During the departure of the funeral procession from the Trinity-Sergius Desert, the coffin with the body of M.I. Kutuzov was moved from the road to a city chariot under a canopy, harnessed by six horses under mourning blankets, on the surface of which the coats of arms of the most serene prince were sewn. On June 11, the cortege moved to the capital of the Russian Empire, and again simple people, despite the protests of the authorities, unharnessed the horses, and two versts from the city, “kind and pious citizens wished to carry the remains to their sad destination on their shoulders and hands.”

In St. Petersburg, the procession proceeded through Nevsky Prospekt to the almost completed Kazan Cathedral, where it was decided to bury M.I. Kutuzov, although relatives were inclined to ensure that the body of the deceased was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In the Kazan Cathedral, the coffin brought in was installed on a magnificent high hearse, built according to the project of the architect A.N. Voronikhin. The hearse was conceived by him as a solemn structure without signs of sadness and tears. Steps led to a high platform with an arch on both sides, from the corners of the hearse trophy French and Turkish banners they rose up and bent over the coffin, around there were huge candelabra in the form of cannons. Many candles cast glare on the guard of honor, which consisted of the field marshal's retinue.

For two days, the inhabitants of St. Petersburg went to the Kazan Cathedral to say goodbye to the commander, and on June 13 - the day of the burial - the highest clergy in mourning attire gathered in the cathedral. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated by the Metropolitan of Novgorod with the appointed clergy, the sermon was delivered by Archimandrite of the Yuryev Monastery Filaret, rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, professor of theological sciences.

The coffin with the body of M.I. Kutuzov was installed in the crypt, in the northern aisle of the cathedral; when the coffin was lowered into the grave, three cannon and rifle volleys were fired. The grave was walled up with a granite slab and surrounded by an iron grate of the most skillful work. A red marble plaque was built into the wall above the grave, on which the inscription was made in gilded letters: “Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov Smolensky. Born in 1745, died in 1813 in Bunzlau.

Initially, in the design of the grave of M.I. Kutuzov included three icons, only the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God, especially revered by the field marshal, which was at the tomb on June 11–13, has survived to this day. The design of the grave also includes a painting by the famous Russian artist F.Ya. Alekseev "Religious procession on Red Square after the liberation of Moscow from the Polish invaders in 1612". Although the painting was installed here in 1810, it organically fit into the figurative tombstone above the crypt of M.I. Kutuzov. According to the signature of the artist himself, the picture depicts "... a miracle from the icon of the Kazan Mother of God in Moscow ... when, a few days after the cleansing of Moscow from adversaries, the Russian army took part in the great celebration of the glorification of the Miraculous Icon of the Kazan Mother of God."

Elements of heraldry were also introduced into the decorative design of the tombstone, for example, on the front wall of the lattice and on the bottom of the wall there are images of the coats of arms of M.I. Kutuzov - tribal, noble and princely. The coat of arms of the Kutuzov family (common for all branches of the family) represents a black single-headed eagle with outstretched wings in a blue shield, a noble crown above its head, and a silver sword in its right hand. The shield is surmounted by a nobleman's helmet with a crown and three ostrich feathers... The heraldic bas-relief made in casting, in which a three-dimensional coat of arms is placed on a low relief of unfolded banners, is a symbol of victory in the overall composition.

In 1813, the grave of M.I. Kutuzov with a marble slab was surrounded by a strict bronze fence, also made according to the project of the architect A.N. Voronikhin. For its design, he used the attributes typical of classical decor: on three sides, the fence consists of verticals in the form of banner poles topped with peaks. The strict rhythm of these verticals is echoed by the careful repetition of gilded laurel wreaths in double horizontal planes. The front corner posts are made in the form of cannons topped with a laurel wreath and a helmet.

Grave of M.I. Kutuzov is flanked by two pilasters, on which 6 captured French banners and standards and 6 bunches of keys from fortresses and cities taken by the Russian army are fixed. The banners were fixed in special brackets; octagonal gilded bronze boards were made for the keys.

The history of St. Petersburg inside out. Notes on the margins of urban chronicles Sherikh Dmitry Yurievich

By the old Saxon road Where is Kutuzov's heart buried?

By the old Saxon road

Where is Kutuzov's heart buried?

People of the older generation, perhaps, remember the patriotic song "Heart of Kutuzov", written in 1967 by the composer Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin to the verses of Evgeny Aronovich Dolmatovsky. It was then performed by the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble:

Scouts suddenly on the hill next door

We saw a strict monument -

The graves of friends and Kutuzov's heart

By the old Saxon road...

Long overgrown dugouts and trenches,

Attacks are far.

For the world delivered in the center of Europe

Soviet regiments!

Guardsmen carry out their service with dignity

On the farthest threshold

And you can hear how Kutuzov's heart beats

By the old Saxon road!

At the heart of the song is a story as well-known as it is apocryphal. Until now, on the pages of newspapers, magazines, almanacs, one can find reports that the heart of Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was buried near Bunzlau (now Boleslavets in Poland), not far from the place of his death. And here is what was said in the already classic book of Leningrader Lev Nikolayevich Punin “Field Marshal Kutuzov”, which was published in 1957: “Kutuzov’s heart, at his request, was buried in a cemetery near the city of Bunzlau. “Let them take my ashes to their homeland, and bury my heart here, by the Saxon road, so that my soldiers, the sons of Russia, know that I remain with them in my heart,” Mikhail Illarionovich bequeathed.

On the outskirts of the village of Tillendorf, on the road leading from Silesia to Saxony, on a small hillock, under the canopy of trees, the heart of a Russian field marshal rests. A simple cemetery fence, a small pedestal and a round granite column. The monument to the great Russian patriot looks so simple and modest.”

Bunzlau, Tillendorf… But where does Petersburg come into play?

Very much so. The heart of Kutuzov, as proven long ago, lies in the Kazan Cathedral of the northern capital of Russia.

Let me remind you: the construction of this temple was completed just before the Patriotic War, in 1811, and two years later it was decided to bury the field marshal in the crypt of the cathedral. The embalmed remains were taken from Bunzlau to Strelna, and from there the procession went to the Kazan Cathedral. At the border of the city, the “grateful sons of Russia” unharnessed the horses from the mourning chariot and carried “on their shoulders the precious ashes of the savior of the Fatherland to the sad destination.”

And more than a century later, in September 1933, on behalf of the head of Leningrad, Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a solid commission was sent to the crypt of the cathedral, consisting of three employees of the Museum of the History of Religion and a representative of the OGPU - to open the crypt of Kutuzov and find out if his heart is here. One of the members of the commission, Boris Nikiforovich Sokratilin, later recalled: “We went down to the basement, punched a hole and went inside the crypt. There was a coffin on a small hill. We've moved the lid. Before us lay the body of Kutuzov, dressed in a green uniform with gold epaulettes. At the head of Kutuzov, I saw a vessel made of silvery metal. The lid was hard to unscrew. In a vessel filled with a transparent liquid, there was a heart ... We screwed the vessel again and put it in its original place.

Grave of M.I. Kutuzov in the Kazan Cathedral

So, from that moment on, there was no doubt left: Kutuzov's heart was buried in the Kazan Cathedral, in a special silver vessel.

I can even guess where the legend came from. The fact is that during the embalming of the body of the commander, the seized internal organs- except for the heart - were placed in a small tin sarcophagus. He was buried in Bunzlau. This fact, of course, formed the basis of the legend. And it turned out to be so stable that in 1913 Moscow activists of the Military Historical Society officially took the initiative to transfer the commander’s heart from Tillendorf to Moscow for “burial in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.”

The legend was especially strengthened during the years of the Great Patriotic War. It is known that on April 28, 1945, on the 132nd anniversary of the death of the commander, an honor guard of one hundred and thirty-six Heroes was placed at the grave near Bunzlau Soviet Union. And at the foot of the first monument to the commander, a marble plaque with verses appeared at the same time:

Among other people's plains, leading to the right feat

The harsh structure of their regiments,

You are the immortal monument of Russian glory

Uplifted on my own heart.

But the commander's heart did not fall silent,

And in a terrible hour it calls to battle,

It lives and fights courageously

In the sons of the Fatherland, saved by you!

And now, passing along the battle trail

Your banners that flew through the smoke

Banners of our own victory

We bow to your heart!

Heart, heart, heart... After the war, the tradition continued: in the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia It was directly stated that Kutuzov's heart was buried in Bunzlau. Nothing has contributed to the strengthening of belief more than this short message.

It is still alive in the minds of many Petersburgers. Although it has no basis.

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The great Russian commander Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov died on April 16, 1813, while on a campaign in the Prussian town of Bunzlau (now Boleslavets), located on the border of Poland with Germany. By order of Tsar Alexander I, Kutuzov's body was embalmed and taken to St. Petersburg, and the internal organs remaining after embalming were buried in a cemetery near the village of Tillendorf, three kilometers from Bunzlau. Now on this grave there is a monument made in the form of a round column broken off like life. On the pedestal there is an inscription in German and Russian:

After the liberation of Poland from the German invaders, the military Soviet army placed at the foot of the monument a plate with the text:

« Here rests the heart of Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, the great Russian patriot and commander, whose troops liberated their homeland from the Napoleonic invasion of 1812-1813».

At the same time, by decision of the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the Kutuzov Memorial was erected in this old village cemetery, the center of which was the first monument to Field Marshal General. Remains buried near Kutuzov's grave 141 Soviet soldiers who died in the battles for the liberation of Silesia from the Nazis, including 42 Heroes Soviet Union. At the entrance to the territory of the cemetery, the figures of Russian soldiers, a grenadier of 1813 and a Soviet soldier of 1945, froze in eternal guard.

However, judging by the appearances in last years publications, researchers of the legendary era of the struggle against Napoleon do not have a single answer to the question of where the commander’s heart rests. Here are a few quotes:

“On April 16, 1813, in the Silesian town of Bunzlau (now the city of Boleslawiec, Wroclaw Voivodeship in Poland), at the age of 68, the commander-in-chief of the Russian troops, Field Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, died ... The next day after his death, Kutuzov's body was embalmed. In a small cylindrical silver vessel, in a special solution, the commander's embalmed heart was placed. Insofar as a heart was considered the guardian of the soul, then according to the canons of the Orthodox Church, it could not be buried separately from the body of the deceased».

A.A. Smirnov, Soviet military historian.

“April 16 at 9 pm Kutuzov died. On April 17, an autopsy and embalming were performed. The body was in Bunzlau for 10 days. On April 26, the adjutant of the commander Montresor and other closest associates of Kutuzov were buried some of his remains at the city cemetery three versts from Bunzlau, in the village of Tillendorf.

From the Kazansky publication. ru "The grave of M.I. Kutuzov".

“M.I. Kutuzov died in the Prussian town of Bunzlau (now Polish Boleslavets) ... His heart is buried there, and the body was taken to St. Petersburg and buried in the Kazan Cathedral.

From a gif post. Common crawl en “Kutuzov died 190 years ago”.

«… body and heart M.I. Kutuzov were embalmed and sent to St. Petersburg, where on June 13, 1813 they were solemnly buried in the Kazan Cathedral.

Encyclopedia "War of 1812" ed. Rosspan, Moscow, 2004

The year was 1813. The Russian army dealt powerful blows to the enemy. Bautzen, Leipzig, Dresden, Kulm were still ahead ... During this period, Prussia, where the commander's heart stopped beating, was our ally. Perhaps Alexander I counted on a long-term strategic partnership with her and therefore ordered to leave Kutuzov's heart there as a symbol of the Russian presence in this part of Europe.

According to the canons Orthodox Church The heart is the guardian of the soul and cannot be buried separately from the body. But what canons will stand before the military-political interests of the empire, especially when a victorious war is going on and a redivision of Europe is to come.

All the sources cited unanimously confirm the fact of embalming the body of M.I. Kutuzov. It follows from this that the commander's heart was removed from the body and ... either buried in Bunzlau, or sent along with the coffin to St. Petersburg, or first buried, and then nevertheless sent to Russia.

So why are historians still arguing about this?

Or maybe because until a certain time the heart really was in Bunzlau? And then, at the initiative of the Moscow Military Historical Society, after 1913 it was transferred to the Kazan Cathedral (an article by S. Makin in the Slovo newspaper dated 06/20/2003)? But then this fact should be reflected in official documents, why hide it?

You can and should hide it if the heart was reburied by the Soviet security officers in the thirties on the initiative of the tsarist military historians. Suppose that, foreseeing the threat of the victory of fascism in Germany and its spread across Europe, the Bolsheviks ordered their military vanguard to take Kutuzov's heart out of the territory of Silesia and thus save him from the desecration of the Nazis. The danger was real, because there were precedents: the Napoleonic soldiers, who captured Bunzlau in the summer of 1813, destroyed the first modest obelisk on the field marshal's grave.

Of course, in those conditions, such an operation could only be carried out with special means and methods. Then it is clear why there are no materials in the archives accessible to most historians. In 1977, Leningradskaya Pravda published the memoirs of a former employee of the OGPU, B.S.

«… We entered the crypt and saw jar with heart", - writes the veteran.

Why did the Chekists need to check the tomb?! Let's imagine another option:

«… We entered the crypt and put jar with heart»…

Or is everything much simpler and more prosaic?

The heart was delivered to the capital along with the coffin and rests in the Kazan Cathedral since the burial of the field marshal there. Other internal organs of Kutuzov, which remained after embalming, are buried at a cemetery in Poland. And in order to give the symbolism its due strength, it was announced that the hearts were buried in Bunzlau.

By the way, there is no clarification on this subject on the pedestal of the monument, simply:

« Prince Kutuzov Smolensky».

The remains of the Russian commander lie in a foreign land, no longer allied and by no means friendly to us Poland. About one and a half hundred of his valiant descendants, soldiers of the Soviet Army, are buried nearby.

And if the heart of M.I. Kutuzov nevertheless rested according to the laws prescribed by Orthodoxy along with the body of the commander, then the hearts of many living Russian patriots do not know peace when the not-named graves of their fathers and grandfathers who saved Europe from fascism grow back in neighboring countries.

The author has seen German war graves from the world wars in France, they are kept in perfect order. Not far from the Borodino field, near the village of Shevardino, there is a memorial to the French who fought the Russians, well-groomed by the efforts of local authorities.

These are the graves of warriors, and the sin of the nation that today is in pursuit of the notorious European civilization loses historical memory.

P.S. The remains of more than 141 Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of Poland. In the center of the memorial is the symbolic grave of M.I. Kutuzov, who died in Bunzlau in April 1813.

Geneva - Bolesławiec, April 2005

Alexander Taranov

By the old Saxon road

19th century

People of the older generation, perhaps, remember the patriotic song "Heart of Kutuzov", written in 1967 by the composer Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin to the verses of Evgeny Aronovich Dolmatovsky. It was then performed by the Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble:

Scouts suddenly on the hill next door

We saw a strict monument -

The graves of friends and Kutuzov's heart

By the old Saxon road...

Long overgrown dugouts and trenches,

Attacks are far.

For the world delivered in the center of Europe

Soviet regiments!

Guardsmen carry out their service with dignity

On the farthest threshold

And you can hear how Kutuzov's heart beats

By the old Saxon road!

At the heart of the song is a story as well-known as it is apocryphal. Until now, on the pages of newspapers, magazines, almanacs, one can find reports that the heart of Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov was buried near Bunzlau (now Boleslavets in Poland), not far from the place of his death. And here is what was said in the already classic book of Leningrader Lev Nikolaevich Lunin “Field Marshal Kutuzov”, which was published in 1957: “Kutuzov’s heart, at his request, was buried in a cemetery near the city of Bunzlau. “Let them take my ashes to their homeland, and bury my heart here, by the Saxon road, so that my soldiers, the sons of Russia, know that I remain with them in my heart,” Mikhail Illarionovich bequeathed.

On the outskirts of the village of Tillendorf, on the road leading from Silesia to Saxony, on a small hillock, under the canopy of trees, the heart of a Russian field marshal rests. A simple cemetery fence, a small pedestal and a round granite column. The monument to the great Russian patriot looks so simple and modest.”

Bunzlau, Tillendorf… But where does Petersburg come into play?

Very much so. The heart of Kutuzov, as proven long ago, lies in the Kazan Cathedral of the northern capital of Russia.

Let me remind you: the construction of this temple was completed just before the Patriotic War, in 1811, and two years later it was decided to bury the field marshal in the crypt of the cathedral. The embalmed remains were taken from Bunzlau to Strelna, and from there the procession went to the Kazan Cathedral. At the border of the city, the “grateful sons of Russia” unharnessed the horses from the mourning chariot and carried “on their shoulders the precious ashes of the savior of the Fatherland to the sad destination.”

And more than a century later, in September 1933, on behalf of the head of Leningrad, Sergei Mironovich Kirov, a solid commission was sent to the crypt of the cathedral, consisting of three employees of the Museum of the History of Religion and a representative of the OGPU - to open the crypt of Kutuzov and find out if his heart is here. One of the members of the commission, Boris Nikiforovich Sokratilin, later recalled: “We went down to the basement, punched a hole and went inside the crypt. There was a coffin on a small hill. We've moved the lid. Before us lay the body of Kutuzov, dressed in a green uniform with gold epaulettes. At the head of Kutuzov, I saw a vessel made of silvery metal. The lid was hard to unscrew. In a vessel filled with a transparent liquid, lay the heart. We screwed up the vessel again and put it in its original place.

Grave of M.I. Kutuzov in the Kazan Cathedral

So, from that moment on, there was no doubt left: Kutuzov's heart was buried in the Kazan Cathedral, in a special silver vessel.

I can even guess where the legend came from. The fact is that during the embalming of the body of the commander, the seized internal organs - except for the heart - were placed in a small tin sarcophagus. He was buried in Bunzlau. This fact, of course, formed the basis of the legend. And it turned out to be so stable that in 1913 Moscow activists of the Military Historical Society officially took the initiative to transfer the commander’s heart from Tillendorf to Moscow for “burial in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.”

The legend was especially strengthened during the Great Patriotic War. It is known that on April 28, 1945, on the 132nd anniversary of the death of the commander, an honor guard of one hundred and thirty-six Heroes of the Soviet Union was placed at the grave near Bunzlau. And at the foot of the first monument to the commander, a marble plaque with verses appeared at the same time:

Among other people's plains, leading to the right feat

The harsh structure of their regiments,

You are the immortal monument of Russian glory

Uplifted on my own heart.

But the commander's heart did not fall silent,

And in a terrible hour it calls to battle,

It lives and fights courageously

In the sons of the Fatherland, saved by you!

And now, passing along the battle trail

Your banners that flew through the smoke

Banners of our own victory

We bow to your heart!

Heart, heart, heart ... After the war, the tradition continued: in the second edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia it was directly stated that Kutuzov's heart was buried in Bunzlau. Nothing has contributed to the strengthening of belief more than this short message.

It is still alive in the minds of many Petersburgers. Although it has no basis.