The unimagined fate of Pavlik Morozov: a family and everyday drama or a murder with political overtones?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

He twice became a victim of political propaganda: in the era of the USSR he was portrayed as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and in perestroika times - as an informer who betrayed his own father. Modern historians have questioned both myths about Pavlika Morozovwho became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.

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

In fact, Pavlik was not a pioneer - a pioneer organization appeared in their village only a month after his assassination. The tie was later simply added to the portrait for him. He did not write any denunciations against his father. His ex-wife testified against Trofim at the trial. Pavlik only confirmed the testimony of his mother that Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council, sold certificates to the displaced kulaks about the postscript to the village council and that they had no tax arrears to the state. These certificates were in the hands of the Chekists, and Trofim Morozov would have been tried without the testimony of his son. He and several other district leaders were arrested and sent to prison.

Relations in the Morozov family were not easy. Pavlik's grandfather was a gendarme, and grandmother was a horse thief. They met in prison, where he was guarding her. Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, had a scandalous reputation: he was a reveler, cheated on his wife and, as a result, left her with four children. The chairman of the village council was really dishonest - all the villagers knew that he made money on fictitious certificates and appropriated the property of the dispossessed. There was no political subtext in Pavlik's act - he simply supported his mother, who was unjustly offended by his father. And the grandmother and grandfather for this hated both him and the mother. In addition, when Trofim left his wife, according to his law, the land plot passed to his eldest son Paul, since the family was left without means of subsistence. Having killed the heir, the relatives could count on the return of the land.

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

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

However, this version drew widespread criticism and was defeated. In 1999, the relatives of the Morozovs and representatives of the Memorial movement achieved a review of this case in court, but the Prosecutor General's Office concluded that the murderers had been convicted reasonably and were not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds.

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

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

No less controversy today arises over the role in history Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is a war heroine whose name has overgrown with ridiculous myths.