Botkin is a doctor of the royal family. Passion-bearer Evgeny Botkin. Holy Righteous Evgeny Botkin, physician, martyr

Evgeny Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo, in the family of an outstanding Russian scientist and doctor, the founder of the experimental direction in medicine, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. His father was a court physician to Emperors Alexander II and Alexander III.

As a child, he received an excellent education and was immediately admitted to the fifth grade of the St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, but after the first year he decided to become a doctor and entered the preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy.

Evgeny Botkin's medical career began in January 1890 as an assistant doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. A year later, he went abroad for scientific purposes, studied with leading European scientists, got acquainted with the organization of Berlin hospitals. In May 1892, Evgeny Sergeevich became a doctor at the Court Chapel, and from January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky Hospital. At the same time, he continued his scientific activity: he was engaged in immunology, studied the essence of the process of leukocytosis and the protective properties of blood cells.

In 1893 he brilliantly defended his dissertation. The official opponent on the defense was the physiologist and the first Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov.

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904), Evgeny Botkin volunteered for the active army and became head of the medical unit of the Russian Red Cross Society in the Manchurian army. According to eyewitnesses, despite his administrative position, he spent a lot of time on the front lines. For distinction in work he was awarded many orders, including military officer orders.

In the autumn of 1905, Evgeny Sergeevich returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907 he was appointed chief physician of the community of St. George in the capital. In 1907, after the death of Gustav Hirsch, the royal family was left without a medical doctor. The candidacy of the new life physician was named by the empress herself, who, when asked who she would like to see in this position, answered: “Botkin”. When she was told that now two Botkins are equally known in St. Petersburg, she said: “The one that was in the war!”.

Botkin was three years older than his august patient, Nicholas II. The duty of the life physician included the treatment of all members of the royal family, which he carefully and scrupulously performed. It was necessary to examine and treat the emperor, who had good health, the grand duchesses, who suffered from various childhood infections. But the main object of Yevgeny Sergeevich's efforts was Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.

After the February coup in 1917, the imperial family was imprisoned in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. All servants and assistants were asked to leave the prisoners at will. But Dr. Botkin stayed with the patients. He did not want to leave them and when it was decided to send the royal family to Tobolsk. In Tobolsk, he opened a free medical practice for local residents. In April 1918, together with the royal couple and their daughter Maria, Dr. Botkin was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. At that moment there was still an opportunity to leave the royal family, but the doctor did not leave them.

Johann Meyer, an Austrian soldier who fell into Russian captivity during the First World War and defected to the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, wrote his memoirs “How the Imperial Family Perished”. In the book, he reports on the proposal made by the Bolsheviks to Dr. Botkin to leave the royal family and choose a place of work, for example, somewhere in a Moscow clinic. Thus, one of all the prisoners of the special purpose house knew exactly about the imminent execution. He knew and, having the opportunity to choose, he preferred to salvation loyalty to the oath given once to the king. This is how Meyer describes it: “You see, I gave the king my word of honor to remain with him as long as he lives. It is impossible for a man of my position not to keep such a word. I also cannot leave an heir alone. How can I reconcile this with my conscience? You all need to understand this."

Dr. Botkin was killed along with the entire imperial family in Yekaterinburg in the Ipatiev House on the night of July 16-17, 1918.

In 1981, together with others shot in the Ipatiev House, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

PASSION BEARER EVGENY VRACH (BOTKIN) - life and icon

Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoe Selo, St. Petersburg province, in the family of a famous Russian general practitioner, professor of the Medical and Surgical Academy, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. He came from the merchant dynasty of the Botkins, whose representatives were distinguished by deep Orthodox faith and charity, helped the Orthodox Church kwi not only with their own means, but also with their labors. Thanks to a reasonably organized system of upbringing in the family and the wise guardianship of parents, many virtues were laid in the heart of Eugene from childhood, including generosity, modesty and rejection of violence. His brother Pyotr Sergeevich recalled: “He was infinitely kind. One could say that he came into the world for the sake of people and in order to sacrifice himself.

Eugene received a thorough home education, which in 1878 allowed him to immediately enter the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. In 1882, Evgeny graduated from the gymnasium and became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University. However, the very next year, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he entered the junior department of the opened preparatory course of the Imperial Military Medical Academy. From the very beginning, his choice of the medical profession was conscious and purposeful. Pyotr Botkin wrote about Evgeny: “He chose medicine as his profession. This corresponded to his vocation: to help, support in a difficult moment, relieve pain, heal without end. In 1889, Eugene successfully graduated from the academy, receiving the title of doctor with honors, and from January 1890 began his career at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.

At the age of 25, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin married the daughter of a hereditary nobleman, Olga Vladimirovna Manuylova. Four children grew up in the Botkin family: Dmitry (1894–1914), Georgy (1895–1941), Tatyana (1898–1986), Gleb (1900–1969).

Simultaneously with his work in the hospital, E. S. Botkin was engaged in science, he was interested in questions of immunology, the essence of the process of leukocytosis. In 1893, E. S. Botkin brilliantly defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. After 2 years, Evgeny Sergeevich was sent abroad, where he practiced at medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1897, E. S. Botkin was awarded the title of Privatdozent in Internal Medicine with a clinic. At his first lecture, he told students about the most important thing in a doctor's work: "Let's all go with love to a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him." Evgeny Sergeevich considered the service of a physician to be a truly Christian deed, he had a religious view of illnesses, saw their connection with the state of mind of a person. In one of his letters to his son George, he expressed his attitude to the medical profession as a means of knowing God's wisdom: “The main delight that you experience in our work ... is that for this we must penetrate deeper and deeper into the details and the secrets of God's creations, and it is impossible not to enjoy their expediency and harmony and His highest wisdom.
Since 1897, E. S. Botkin began his medical practice in the communities of sisters of mercy of the Russian Red Cross Society. On November 19, 1897, he became a doctor in the Holy Trinity Community of Sisters of Mercy, and on January 1, 1899, he also became chief physician of the St. Petersburg Community of Sisters of Mercy in honor of St. George. The main patients of the community of St. George were people from the poorest strata of society, but doctors and attendants were selected in it with special care. Some women of the upper class worked there as simple nurses on a general basis and considered this occupation an honor for themselves. Such enthusiasm reigned among the employees, such a desire to help suffering people that the people of St. George were sometimes compared with the early Christian community. The fact that Yevgeny Sergeevich was accepted to work in this “exemplary institution” testified not only to his increased authority as a doctor, but also to his Christian virtues and respectable life. The position of the chief physician of the community could only be entrusted to a highly moral and believing person.

In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, and Evgeny Sergeevich, leaving his wife and four small children (the eldest was ten years old at that time, the youngest four years old), volunteered to go to the Far East. On February 2, 1904, by a decree of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society, he was appointed assistant to the Commissioner-in-Chief for the active armies for the medical unit. Occupying this rather high administrative position, Dr. Botkin was often at the forefront. During the war, Evgeny Sergeevich not only showed himself to be an excellent doctor, but also showed personal courage and courage. He wrote many letters from the front, from which a whole book was compiled - “Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.” This book was soon published, and many, having read it, discovered new sides of the St. Petersburg doctor: his Christian, loving , an infinitely compassionate heart and an unshakable faith in God. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, after reading Botkin's book, wished that Evgeny Sergeevich became the personal doctor of the Royal Family. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1908, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree appointing Dr. Botkin as a medical officer of the Imperial Court.

Now, after the new appointment, Evgeny Sergeevich had to constantly be with the emperor and members of his family, his service at the royal court proceeded without days off and holidays. The high position and closeness to the Royal family did not change the character of E. S. Botkin. He remained as kind and considerate to others as he had been before.

When the First World War began, Evgeny Sergeevich asked the sovereign to send him to the front to reorganize the sanitary service. However, the emperor instructed him to stay with the empress and the children in Tsarskoe Selo, where infirmaries began to open through their efforts. At his home in Tsarskoye Selo, Evgeny Sergeevich also set up an infirmary for the slightly wounded, which the Empress and her daughters visited.

In February 1917, a revolution took place in Russia. On March 2, the sovereign signed the Manifesto on abdication. The royal family was arrested and taken into custody in the Alexander Palace. Yevgeny Sergeevich did not leave his royal patients: he voluntarily decided to stay with them, despite the fact that his position was abolished and his salary was stopped. At this time, Botkin became more than a friend for the royal prisoners: he took upon himself the duty of mediating between the imperial family and the commissars, interceding for all their needs.

When it was decided to move the royal family to Tobolsk, Dr. Botkin was among the few close associates who voluntarily followed the sovereign into exile. Dr. Botkin's letters from Tobolsk are striking in their truly Christian mood: not a word of grumbling, condemnation, discontent or resentment, but complacency and even joy. The source of this complacency was a firm faith in the all-good Providence of God: "Only prayer and ardent boundless hope in the mercy of God, unfailingly poured out on us by our Heavenly Father, support us." At this time, he continued to fulfill his duties: he treated not only members of the Royal family, but also ordinary citizens. A scientist who for many years communicated with the scientific, medical, and administrative elite of Russia, he humbly served, like a zemstvo or city doctor, ordinary peasants, soldiers, and workers.

In April 1918, Dr. Botkin volunteered to accompany the royal couple to Yekaterinburg, leaving his own children in Tobolsk, whom he loved passionately and tenderly. In Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks again invited the servants to leave the arrested, but everyone refused. Chekist I. Rodzinsky reported: “In general, at one time after the transfer to Yekaterinburg, there was an idea to separate them all from them, in particular, even the daughters were offered to leave. But everyone refused. Botkin was offered. He stated that he wanted to share the fate of the family. And he refused."

On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the royal family, their entourage, including Dr. Botkin, were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house.
A few years before his death, Evgeny Sergeevich received the title of hereditary nobleman. For his coat of arms, he chose the motto: "By faith, fidelity, work." In these words, as it were, all the life ideals and aspirations of Dr. Botkin were concentrated. Deep inner piety, most importantly - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unshakable devotion to the Royal family and fidelity to God and His commandments in all circumstances, fidelity to death. The Lord accepts such fidelity as a pure sacrifice and gives for it the highest, heavenly reward: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).

, passion-bearer, righteous doctor

He was educated at home and in the year was admitted immediately to the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, however, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he left for the junior department of the opened preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy.

One of the reasons for such a cautious attitude was the non-Orthodox confession of some of them; however, the report did not mention the Old Believers of E. S. Botkin. The motive for the canonization of non-Orthodox persons in ROCOR was the precedents of the Church glorifying the victims of persecution of Christians who were not baptized - for example, pagans who joined Christians during the execution.

On October 7 of that year, at a regular meeting of the working group for harmonizing the calendars of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad, chaired by the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and with the participation of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, "the results of studying the feat of persons revered in the Russian diaspora were noted. The possibility of church-wide glorification was recognized the following saints, previously canonized by the Russian Church Abroad: ‹…› the passion-bearer of the righteous Evgeny the doctor (Botkin), who accepted suffering together with the royal family in the Ipatiev House (+1918, Comm. 4 / 17 July) ".

Holy Passion-Bearer Eugene Botkin. On February 6, 2016, on the eve of the feast of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Kirill of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye and Bishop Methodius of Kamensky and Alapaevsky celebrated the All-Night Vigil in the Church-on-the-Blood. The archpastors were co-served by numerous clerics of the Yekaterinburg diocese. At the end of the service, Metropolitan Kirill and Bishop Methodius with a host of clergy served a panikhida for the deceased servant of God, the murdered Yevgeny Sergeevich Botkin. After that, Vladyka Kirill addressed the worshipers: Today we served here for the last time a memorial service for Yevgeny Sergeevich Botkin, who was killed 98 years ago at this place. Killed along with the royal family and instead of those who could stay with them. There were four people with them, not because there were only four of them left, but because the others were not allowed. But even those who were admitted - they were still a handful of people. Just like at the Cross of the Lord, there were also few people left when Christ was crucified. Today we are standing here, at this sacred place, at this Russian Golgotha, and let's think that it took us, the Church, 98 years to canonize those who martyred for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland laid down their lives. And how many more years do we need for us to realize all the severity and all the misfortune that befell our people, our Motherland these 98 years ago? And when we realize this, maybe then something will change in our life with you? In the meantime, we live the way we used to live, and as long as we are not touched by rumors about the war, or ongoing troubles, or illnesses and other terrible events - we live as we lived, we bury our heads in the sand so as not to see or hear, so that know nothing and feel nothing. And the time is approaching, and we must be aware of this and pray, pray and pray. We have no other means to change anything: no army, no navy, nothing else that a person who has power and strength can have. But we have something that many others do not have: we know Christ, we know the power of prayer, and we must use today, strive for this, so that our life turns into prayer. So that we begin to pray consciously, frankly, sincerely, and pray not only for ourselves and our loved ones, but in a special way again and again pray for our Motherland, for our holy Church. And to be believers and faithful, like Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was - a great man and a man who - we know and believe - today stands before the throne of God and prays for all those standing here and covers us with his blessed prayer cover - the cover of a martyr. Today we commemorated him for the last time, “God rest with the saints,” and tomorrow we will ask him: “Holy passion-bearer Eugene, pray to God for us.” On February 7, 2016, in the Church-on-the-Blood, Metropolitan Kirill with the clergy of the Yekaterinburg diocese, in accordance with the decision of the Council of Bishops, will glorify in the Face of Saints the Passion-bearer Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin. And after the Liturgy, Vladyka Kirill will open the exhibition “God is Wonderful in His Saints” in the Temple-on-the-Blood, dedicated to the feat in the name of faith of the holy martyrs and confessors of the Russian Church of the 20th century. Stay up to date with upcoming events and news! Join the group - Dobrinsky Temple

Taking into account the above opinion of the working group, on February 3, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to bless the general church veneration "

"My dear friend Sasha! I am making the last attempt to write a real letter - at least from here - although this reservation, in my opinion, is completely unnecessary: ​​I do not think that I was destined to write anywhere from anywhere. My voluntary imprisonment here is as time-limited as my earthly existence is limited.
Show full.. In essence, I died - I died for my children, for the cause ... I died, but not yet buried or buried alive - as you wish: the consequences are almost identical<...>

My children may have the hope that we will meet again sometime in this life, but I personally do not indulge myself with this hope and look the unvarnished reality straight in the eye. So far, however, I am healthy and fat as before, so that sometimes it even disgusts me to see myself in the mirror.<...>

If "faith without works is dead," then works without faith can exist. And if any of us has joined the deeds and faith, then this is only by the special grace of God to him. I turned out to be one of these lucky ones, through a difficult test, the loss of my first child, a six-month-old son Serezha. Since then, my code has been greatly expanded and defined, and in every business I have taken care of the "Lord's". This also justifies my last decision, when I did not hesitate to leave my children as complete orphans in order to fulfill my medical duty to the end, just as Abraham did not hesitate at the request of God to sacrifice his only son to him. And I firmly believe that just as God saved Isaac then, He will now save my children and will himself be their father. But since I don’t know what he will put their salvation in and I can only find out about it from the other world, then my egoistic sufferings, which I described to you, from this, of course, due to my human weakness, does not lose its painful sharpness. But Job endured more<...>. No, apparently, I can endure everything that the Lord God will please me to send down.

Dr. Evgeny Sergeyevich Botkin - brother Alexander Sergeyevich Botkin, June 26 / July 9, 1918, Yekaterinburg.

"There are events that leave an imprint on the entire subsequent development of the nation. The murder of the royal family in Yekaterinburg is one of them. Of his own free will, with the emperor's family, among his other closest household members, the life physician Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin, a representative of the family who played a huge role in the history and culture of our country ... The grandson of Dr. Botkin, who lives in Paris, talks about the family, its traditions and his own fate with Itogi Konstantin Konstantinovich Melnik, now a famous French writer, and in the past a prominent figure in the special services of General de Gaulle.

- Where did the Botkins come from, Konstantin Konstantinovich?

- There are two versions. According to the first of them, the Botkins come from the townspeople of the city of Toropets, Tver province. In the Middle Ages, small Toropets prospered. It was on the way from Novgorod to Moscow, along this route since the time of the Varangians to the Greeks went to Kiev and further - to Tsargrad - merchants with caravans. But with the advent of St. Petersburg, the economic vectors of Russia changed, and Toropets fell into decay ... However, Botkins is a very strange-sounding Russian surname. When I worked in America, I met a lot of namesakes there, however, through the letter "d". So I do not rule out that the Botkins are descendants of immigrants from the British Isles who came to Russia after the revolution in England and the civil war in the kingdom. Such, say, as the Lermontovs... It is only known for sure that Konon Botkin and his sons Dmitry and Peter appeared in Moscow at the very end of the eighteenth century. They had their own textile production, but it was not fabrics that brought them a fortune. And tea! In 1801, Botkin founded a firm specializing in the wholesale tea trade. The business is developing very quickly, and soon my ancestor creates not only an office in Kyakhta for the purchase of Chinese tea, but also begins to import Indian and Ceylon tea from London. It was called that - Botkinsky, it was a kind of quality mark.

- I remember that the writer Ivan Shmelev quotes a Moscow joke with which Botkin tea was traded: “To whom - here they are, but for you - Mr. Botkin! To whom steamed, but for you - the master!

- It was tea that was the basis of the huge fortune of the Botkins. Peter Kononovich, who continued the family business, had twenty-five children from two wives. Some of them have become famous characters in Russian history and culture. Vasily Petrovich, the eldest son, was a well-known Russian publicist, a friend of Belinsky and Herzen, and an interlocutor of Karl Marx. Nikolai Petrovich was friends with Gogol, whom he once even saved his life. Maria Petrovna married the poet Afanasy Shenshin, better known as Fet. Another sister, Ekaterina Petrovna, is the wife of the manufacturer Ivan Shchukin, whose sons became famous collectors. And Pyotr Petrovich Botkin, who actually became the head of the family business, after the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, was elected its headman ...

Coat of arms of the Botkins Photo: from the archive of Kovalevskaya T.O.

Sergei Petrovich was the eleventh child of Peter Kononovich. From childhood, his father defined him as "a fool", even threatened to give him up as a soldier. And in fact: at the age of nine, the boy could hardly distinguish letters. The situation was saved by Vasily, the eldest of the sons. They hired a good home teacher, and it soon became clear that Sergei was very gifted in mathematics. He planned to enter the mathematical faculty of Moscow University, but Nicholas I issued a decree forbidding persons of the non-noble class to enter all faculties, except for medical. Sergei Petrovich had no choice but to study to be a doctor. First in Russia, and then in Germany, which took almost all the money he inherited. Then he worked at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. And his mentor was the great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, with whom Sergei visited the fields of the Crimean War.

The medical talent of Sergei Botkin showed up very quickly. He preached a medical philosophy previously unknown in Russia: it is not the disease that should be treated, but the patient who needs to be loved. The main thing is the person. “Cholera poison does not pass even the magnificent chambers of the rich,” Dr. Botkin inspired. He creates a hospital for the poor, which has since been named after him, and opens a free dispensary. A rare diagnostician, he enjoys such fame that he is invited to the court as a life doctor. Becomes the first Russian imperial doctor, before it was only foreigners, usually Germans. Botkin cures the Empress of a serious illness, travels with Tsar Alexander II to the Russian-Turkish war.

The only incorrect diagnosis made by Dr. Botkin was only to himself. He died in December 1889, only six months outliving his close friend, the writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, whose children he was guardian of. At first, they were going to erect a monument to Sergei Petrovich near St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, but then the authorities took a more practical decision. Empress Maria Feodorovna established a nominal bed in the hospital: the annual fee for the maintenance of such a bed provided for the cost of treating patients “prescribed” in the Botkin bed.

- Considering that your grandfather also became a life doctor, we can say that a doctor is a hereditary Botkin profession ...

- Yes. After all, Sergei, the eldest son of Dr. Sergei Petrovich Botkin, my great-uncle, was also a doctor. The entire aristocracy of St. Petersburg was treated by him. This Botkin was a real socialite: he led a noisy life full of passionate novels. In the end, he married Alexandra, daughter of Pavel Tretyakov, one of the richest people in Russia, a fanatical collector.

Botkins - Evgeny Sergeevich with his wife Olga Vladimirovna and children (from left to right) Dmitry, Gleb, Yuri and Tatyana Photo: from the archive of Kovalevskaya T.O.

- And your grandfather?

- Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was a different person, non-secular. Before studying in Germany, he was also educated at the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. Unlike his older brother, he did not open an expensive private practice, but went to work at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. It was founded by Empress Maria Feodorovna. He worked a lot with the Russian Red Cross and St. George's community of sisters of mercy. These structures existed only thanks to the highest patronage. In the Soviet era, for obvious reasons, they always tried to hush up the great philanthropic activities of the royal family ... When the Russo-Japanese War began, Evgeny Sergeevich went to the front, where he led the field infirmary, helped the wounded under fire.

Returning from the Far East, my grandfather published the book Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War, compiled from his letters to his wife from the front. On the one hand, he sings of the heroism of Russian soldiers and officers, on the other hand, he is indignant at the mediocrity of the command and the thieves' machinations of the commissariat. Surprisingly, the book was not subjected to any censorship! Moreover, she fell into the hands of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. After reading it, the queen declared that she wanted to see the author as her family's personal physician. So my grandfather became the life doctor of Nicholas II.

- And what kind of relationship does Dr. Botkin establish with royal people?

- With the king - truly comradely. Sincere sympathy arises between Botkin and Alexandra Fedorovna. Contrary to popular belief, she was not at all an obedient toy in the hands of Rasputin. Proof of this is the fact that my grandfather was the complete opposite of Rasputin, whom he considered a charlatan and did not hide his opinion. He knew about this and repeatedly complained to the queen about Dr. Botkin, from whom he promised to "tear off his skin alive." But at the same time, Evgeny Sergeevich did not deny the phenomenon that Rasputin in an incomprehensible way had a beneficial effect on the Tsarevich. I think there is an explanation for this today. When ordering to stop giving medicine to the heir, Rasputin did this, of course, because of his fanaticism, but he did it right. Then the main medicine was aspirin, which was stuffed for any reason. Aspirin, on the other hand, thins the blood, and for a prince suffering from hemophilia, it was like poison ...

Dr. Botkin with the Grand Duchesses in England Photo: from the archive of T. O. Kovalevskaya

Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin practically did not see his own family. From early morning he went to the Winter Palace and disappeared there all day.

“But your mother also developed friendly relations with the four daughters of the emperor. So, in any case, Tatiana Botkina writes in her famous book of memoirs...

“That friendship was pretty much made up by my mother. She so wanted to... Contacts between them could have arisen, perhaps, only in Tsarskoe Selo, where, after the internment of the imperial family, my mother goes after my father. Then, of her own free will, she goes for the royal family to Tobolsk. She was barely nineteen at the time. A passionate, even religiously fanatical nature, before the royal family was sent to Yekaterinburg, she came to the commissar and demanded that she be sent along with her father. To which the Bolshevik said: "A young lady of your age does not belong there." Either the “faithful Leninist”, who knew what the tsarist exile was leading to, was fascinated by the beauty of my mother, or even the Bolsheviks were sometimes not alien to humanism.

“Did your mother really have a reputation for beauty?”

- She was as pretty as, how to say, stupid ... The Botkins settled in Tobolsk in a small house, which was located opposite the house where the royal family was locked up. When the Bolsheviks took control of Siberia, they made Dr. Botkin (he also taught Russian literature to the heir) a kind of intermediary between them and the royal family. It was Yevgeny Sergeevich who was asked to wake up the royal family on that fateful night of execution in the Ipatiev House. Dr. Botkin then, apparently, did not go to bed, as if he felt something. Sitting with a letter to my brother. It turned out to be unfinished, interrupted in mid-sentence...

All the personal belongings left from my grandfather in Yekaterinburg were taken by the Bolsheviks to Moscow, where they were hidden somewhere. So, just imagine! After the fall of communism, one of the heads of the Russian state archives came to me in Paris and brought me the same letter. An incredible document! My grandfather writes that he will soon die, but he prefers to leave his children orphans than to leave his patients without help and betray the Hippocratic Oath ...

- How did your parents meet?

— My father Konstantin Semyonovich Melnik was from Ukraine — from Volhynia, from wealthy peasants. In the fourteenth year, when the great war began, he was barely twenty. At the front, he was wounded many times and each time he was treated in hospitals maintained by Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatyana. A letter from my father to one of the tsar’s daughters has been preserved, where he wrote: “I am going to the front, but I hope that soon I will be wounded again and find myself in your hospital ...” Once, after recovering, he was sent to St. Petersburg, to a sanatorium on Sadovaya street, which my grandfather organized in his own house. And the officer fell head over heels in love with the doctor's seventeen-year-old daughter...

When the February Revolution broke out, he deserted and, disguised as a peasant, went to Tsarskoye Selo to see his future bride again. But he did not find anyone there and hurried to Siberia! He came up with a crazy plan: what if we gather a group of military officers like him and organize the emperor's flight from Tobolsk?! But the tsar and his family were taken to Yekaterinburg. And then Lieutenant Melnik stole my mother.

Then he went as an officer in Kolchak's army. Served there in counterintelligence. He took my mother across Siberia to Vladivostok. They rode in a cattle car, and at each station executed red partisans hung from the lanterns ... My parents left Vladivostok on the last ship. He was Serbian and went to Dubrovnik. It was naturally impossible to get to him, but my mother went to the Serbs and said that she was Botkina, the granddaughter of the doctor of the “white king”. They agreed to help... Naturally, my father could not take anything with him. He only grabbed these very shoulder straps (shows) of an officer of the Russian army ...

And here is France!

In France, my parents quickly separated. Only three years they lived in exile together. Yes, this is understandable ... My mother was all in the past. Her father fought for survival, and she only mourned for the dead emperor and his family. Even in Yugoslavia, when the parents were in the camp for emigrants, they were followed by an offer to go to Grenoble. There, in the town of Rive-sur-Fure, a French industrialist created a factory and decided to engage Russians to work on it. Settled emigrants in an abandoned castle. They went to work in formation, and at first they stood at the machines in military uniform - there was simply nothing else ... A Russian colony was formed, where I was born and where very soon my father became the main one - a strong, healthy peasant. And the mother kept praying and suffering...

This apparent spiritual misalliance could not last long. The father went to the widow of the Cossack Maria Petrovna, a former machine-gunner on a cart, and the mother took the children - Tanya, Zhenya and me, who was two years old - and went to Nice. There, around a large Russian church, our numerous aristocratic emigrants crowded together. And she felt at home.

- What did your mother do?

Mom never worked anywhere. It remained only to rely on philanthropy: many did not refuse to help the daughter of Dr. Botkin, who was killed with the Emperor. We existed in perfect, utter poverty. Until the age of twenty-two, I never experienced the feeling of satiety ... I started learning French at the age of seven, when I went to a communal school. He joined the Vityaz organization, which brought up children in military discipline: every day we prepared to go to fight against the Bolshevik invaders. The ordinary life of one-suitcase...

And then my mother made a terrible, unforgivable mistake! She recognized the false Anastasia, who allegedly survived the execution in Yekaterinburg and appeared out of nowhere in the late twenties, and because of this she quarreled not only with all the Romanovs, but with almost all emigration.

Already at the age of seven I knew that this was a scam. But the mother seized on this woman as the only ray in our hopeless existence.

In fact, the producer of the false Anastasia was my uncle Gleb. He promoted this Polish peasant woman who came to America from Germany as a Hollywood star. Gleb Botkin was generally a non-squeamish and talented person - he drew comics, wrote books - plus a born adventurer: if for Tatyana Botkina the imperial past was a form of neurosis, for Gleb it was just a prudent game. And the Polish Františka Szańskowska, who became the revived "Anastasia Romanova" in the image of the American Anna Anderson, was a pawn in this risky game. Mom sincerely believed in all this scam of her brother - she even wrote the book “Found Anastasia”.

— How did you get to Paris?

- Having obtained a bachelor's degree, as the best student of the school, I received a scholarship from the French government to study at Ciance Pau, the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. I earned money for a trip to Paris by getting a job as an interpreter in the American army, which was stationed on the Cote d'Azur after the war. He traded in hotels in Nice with coal taken from a military base. However, I was young and squandered my savings in the capital very quickly. The Jesuit Fathers saved me.

In the Parisian suburb of Meudon, where many Russians lived, they founded the center of St. George - an incredible institution where everything was in Russian. In this community, I registered as a lodger. Among the Jesuits gathered the cream of the emigrant society. The Vatican's ambassador to Paris, the future Pope John XXIII, would come and discuss a variety of, not necessarily religious, issues. The most interesting figure was Prince Sergei Obolensky, who was brought up in Yasnaya Polyana until the age of sixteen - his mother was the niece of Leo Tolstoy. When the Vatican established the Russicum organization for the study of the Soviet Union, the Jesuit Father Sergei Obolensky, whom we called Batya behind our backs, became an important figure in this structure. And after I received my diploma in Science Po, the Jesuits invited me to work with them on the study of the Soviet Union.

- Then you made an amazing transition - from the Jesuits to the CIA, and then to the apparatus of Charles de Gaulle. How did it work?

- At the Institute of Political Sciences, I was the best on the course and, as the first number, I got the right to choose a workplace. I became secretary of the Radical Socialist Party group in the Senate. It was headed by Charles Brun. Thanks to him, I met Michel Debret, Raymond Aron, François Mitterrand... My day was structured like this: in the morning I wrote analytical notes on Soviet topics for the Jesuit fathers, and after twelve I fled to the Luxembourg Palace, where I did, so to speak, clean politics.

Brun soon received the portfolio of Minister of the Interior, and I followed him. For two years I was “dealing with communism”: the special services delivered me such a mass of interesting information about the activities of the communists and about their connections with Moscow! And then I was drafted into the army. In the French General Staff, again, knowledge of Sovietology came in handy. Fame brought me the case. Stalin dies, Marshal Jouin calls me: "Who will be the successor of the father of nations?" What can I say? I acted simply: I took a file for the last months of the Pravda newspaper and began to count how many times each of the Soviet leaders was mentioned. Beria, Malenkov, Molotov, Bulganin... A strange thing happens: Nikita Khrushchev, unknown to anyone in the West, appears most of all. I go to the marshal: “This is Khrushchev. No options!" Jouin reported my forecast both to the Elysee Palace and to colleagues from leading Western services. When everything happened according to my scenario, I turned into a hero. The Americans were especially impressed, and they invited me to work for the RAND Corporation. As an analyst for the USSR. It is primitive to say that RAND was at that time only an intellectual branch of the US CIA. RAND brought together America's sharpest minds. After the victory over Nazism, the West knew very little about the Soviet Union, did not understand how to talk to the Soviet leaders. We gave birth to a huge volume, which we called: "The Operational Code of the Politburo." From this book they later made a squeeze of 150 pages, which until the sixties remained like a bible for American diplomats. President Dwight Eisenhower asked RAND to write him a memo of no more than one page based on our research. And we told him: “One page is too much. To understand the Soviet nomenklatura, two words are enough: “Who - whom?”

In the late fifties, the Americans offered me their citizenship - it would seem that a career was finally drawn. But events took place in France, which I could not stay away from. Charles de Gaulle came to power. A few months later, Michel Debré called me and said: “The general has offered me to head the government. Go back to Paris, we need your help!"

- In general, there are offers that cannot be refused ...

- That's what happened. I started working at the Matignon Palace, where I took up the geostrategic problems of the France-USA-USSR triangle. Believe it or not, I discovered such a farce in a secret department that I felt sorry for the Fifth Republic being born before my eyes. And it was possible to set things right only by combining the efforts of all the French special services. This was assigned to me, which is how I became the prime minister's security and intelligence adviser.

My relationship with de Gaulle himself was strange. We rarely saw each other, but at the same time he showed me complete confidence, I could do whatever I considered necessary ... Now, at a distance of half a century that separates us from that time, I see that de Gaulle listened only to himself. I felt like a living God and believed in my magic Word - in dialogue with the French. He was not interested in the opinions of others. He stubbornly called the Soviet Union Russia, believing that she would “drink communism like a blotter of ink.” The Americans were disrespectful. Therefore, he entrusted contact with the CIA to me: every month I met with its chief Allen Dulles, who flew to Paris specifically for this. We had the most trusting relations, and I naively believed that France was in a position to establish the same effective contacts with the KGB. I made a memo to the general on this subject. He listened to her and decided to use this idea when meeting face to face with Nikita Khrushchev during his visit to Paris in the sixtieth year.

De Gaulle began to persuade Khrushchev to carry out the "thaw" more actively, to start something like perestroika. The general arranged for Nikita Sergeevich to visit enterprises and told him: “Your party economy will not last long. We need a mixed economy, like in France.” Khrushchev only replied: "But we in the USSR will do better anyway." The self-satisfaction of the little fat man irritated the enormous de Gaulle. The general realized that Khrushchev was using him vulgarly, that he had come to Paris only to raise his own prestige and rub the nose of his comrades from the Politburo ...

Even worse was my relationship with the KGB. A funny detail: on the eve of the visit, we were sent a box of Melnik red wine from Moscow with a note: “Try this, your Melnik is worse.” We tried it: no, French wine is better, and Melnik is a frank swill compared to it. The psychological pressure on us continued. We were given a list of "undesirable elements" from the Soviet embassy that needed to be deported from Paris during Khrushchev's visit. But that's not all. Jean Verdier, the head of the secret service of the Surte Nacional, called me: “You won’t believe it, they are demanding your deportation too!” I replied to Verdier: "Tell the KGB that Melnik has a lot of power in France, but I can't arrest myself." To be honest, I didn't understand why they hated me so much. Unlike many other representatives of the Russian emigration, I did not hate the Communists and everything Soviet. I treated the "homo sovieticus", as Sergei Obolensky taught it, like a scientist... Only later did I guess what was the matter. The blame for everything is Georges Pak, a Russian secret superspy. This man, who, as it turned out, Khrushchev decided to build the Berlin Wall, came to me in Matignon for talks on geostrategic topics every week and was well aware of my meetings with Allen Dulles and his people. When Anatoly Golitsyn, a KGB officer, defected to the Americans, he told the CIA that he had seen a secret NATO document on psychological warfare at the Lubyanka. He could get to Moscow only through five people to whom this paper was available in the French mission to NATO. Our special services began to take an interest in each of them. Marcel Saly, who was directly involved in the investigation, invited me and said: “Among the five suspects, there is only one who is absolutely pure. This is Georges Pak. He leads a measured life, is rich, an exemplary family man, brings up a little daughter. And I replied: "Especially keep an eye on him, for the impeccable ... In detectives, it is these who turn out to be criminals." We then laughed. But it was Pak who turned out to be a Soviet agent.

Why did you leave this job? After all, as the Parisian Le Monde wrote, you were one of the most influential people in the Fifth Republic.

- Michel Debre left the Matignon Palace, and I was not interested in working with another prime minister. Besides, de Gaulle was not satisfied with my independence. At all times, my goal was to serve the society, and not the state or, even more so, an individual politician. Desiring the overthrow of communism, I served Russia. And after leaving Matignon, I continued to be interested in the Soviet Union and everything connected with it. At the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, I began to actively communicate with Violet, a lawyer for the Vatican. It was one of the most powerful agents of influence in Western Europe. His efforts and the support of the Pope accelerated the Franco-German reconciliation, this lawyer was also at the heart of the Helsinki Declaration on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Together with Maitre Viole, I participated in the development of some provisions of this global document. Brezhnev then sought recognition of the status quo of the post-war continental borders, and the West growled: "This will never happen!" But Viole, who knew Soviet realities and the Kremlin nomenklatura well, reassured Western politicians: “Nonsense! We must recognize the current European borders. But to stipulate this for Moscow on one condition: the free movement of people and ideas.” In 1972, three years before the Helsinki Conference, we presented a draft of this document to Western leaders. History has proved us right: it was the observance of the Third Basket that turned out to be unacceptable to the communists. Many Soviet politicians - Gorbachev in particular - later admit that the collapse of the Soviet Union began precisely with a humanitarian conflict - with a contradiction in the Kremlin and its satellites between words and deeds ...

After retiring from politics, I became a writer and independent publisher. As soon as he left Matignon, he published under the pseudonym Ernest Mignon a book called "Words of the General", which became a bestseller. It was made up of three hundred funny stories from the life of Charles de Gaulle. The most real, not invented ... General's aphorisms ...

- For instance? Say, from what is connected with the USSR?

- You are welcome. During a meeting with de Gaulle, Khrushchev says, referring to Gromyko: "I have such a foreign minister that I can put him on a piece of ice and he will sit on it until everything melts." The general replied without delay: “I have Couve de Murville in this post. I can also put him on a piece of ice, but even the ice does not melt under him. Trust me, this is the absolute truth. This story was told to me by Michel Debré, who heard everything with his own ears.

- Did you meet with Yeltsin?

- Once. In St. Petersburg during the burial of the ashes of my grandfather in the Peter and Paul Fortress. When Boris Yeltsin came to France for the first time as president of Russia in 1992 and received representatives of Russian foreign countries at the embassy, ​​I was not invited there. And, I must say, so far they have never called. Why dont know. It would be nice for me to have a Russian passport, I am a Russian person, even my French wife Danielle, by the way, Michel Debré's former personal secretary, converted to Orthodoxy. But I will never ask anyone about this ... Botkin's spirit, probably, does not allow ...

Among the decisions of the recent Council of Bishops was the decision to glorify the saints of Dr. Evgeny Botkin, who accompanied the Royal Family in Yekaterinburg and was killed in 1918 along with the Royal Passion-Bearers.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

I think that this is a long-awaited decision, because he is one of those saints who are revered not only in the Russian Church Abroad, but also in many dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as in the medical community, like the holy Great Martyr Panteleimon, who is revered as a healer , now Dr. Evgeny Botkin will be revered as a saint.

With regard to other royal servants, as well as those who were killed along with Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna in Alapaevsk, the study of their lives and the circumstances of their death will be continued, the DECR chairman said.

The Romanov family's own doctor, Yevgeny Botkin, was canonized by the Russian Church Abroad in 1981. together with the royal servants - the cook Ivan Kharitonov, the lackey Aloisy Trupp and the maid Anna Demidova.

Participants of the V All-Russian Congress of Orthodox Medical Workers, which was held from October 1 to 3 of the previous year in the northern capital, decided to intercede with the Russian Orthodox Church about the possibility of canonization of medical worker Evgeny Botkin.

How right it is to finally canonize the doctor of the royal family, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin.

He could not go to Yekaterinburg, he volunteered. He could freely leave the Ipatiev House, no one would say a word. His feat was not even in a martyr's gunshot death, but in this absolutely medical, calm, very everyday sacrifice. This is such a great dignity - devoid of pride, swagger and crowning. The same thing - do what you must and be what your heart and God commands.

Why does this happen to people? Rare and precious. From absolute unalloyed love and kindness, I guess.

With the king to the end

Despite the fact that the Botkin dynasty faithfully served two Russian emperors at once - Alexander II and Alexander III, Evgeny Botkin received the position of a life physician (court physician) not because of the achievements of his eminent ancestors (his father was the famous doctor Sergei Petrovich Botkin, after whom one of the central hospitals in Moscow is named). When in 1907 the position of the chief physician of the imperial family was vacated, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna said that she wanted to see Botkin in this capacity. When she was told that there were two doctors in St. Petersburg with that name, she added: “The one who was in the war!”

Botkin went to war as a volunteer. By that time, he had achieved good success in his medical career, was married and had four children. During the Russo-Japanese War, he coordinated the work of medical units under the Russian army. The position is administrative, but Botkin, despite this, preferred to spend more time on the front line and was not afraid, in which case, to play the role of a company paramedic, helping soldiers right on the battlefield.

For his work, he was awarded officer military orders, and after the end of the war he wrote the book Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War. This book led Botkin to the post of medical officer of the imperial family. After reading it, Alexandra Feodorovna did not want to see anyone but him as an imperial doctor.

The Empress chose Yevgeny Botkin for another reason - the illness of Tsarevich Alexei. As a doctor, Botkin studied immunology, as well as the properties of blood. To monitor the health of the young crown prince, who was ill with hemophilia, became one of his main duties at the imperial court.

There was a downside to being able to hold such a high position. Now Botkin had to constantly be close to the imperial family, to work without days off and holidays. Botkin's wife, carried away by a young revolutionary 20 years younger than her, left Yevgeny Sergeevich with a broken heart. Botkin was saved only by love and support from his children, and also the fact that over time the imperial family became not a stranger to him. Botkin treated his august patients with sincere love and attention, he could not leave the bedside of the sick prince at night. To which young Alexei would later write to him in a letter: “I love you with all my little heart.”

“Botkin was known for his restraint. None of the retinue managed to find out from him what the empress was sick with and what treatment the queen and heir followed. He was, of course, a servant devoted to their majesties, ”said General Mosolov, head of the office of the Ministry of the Imperial Court, about Botkin.

Last way

When the revolution happened and the imperial family was arrested, all the servants and assistants of the sovereign had a choice: to stay or leave. Many betrayed the Tsar, but Botkin did not leave the patients even when it was decided to send Nicholas II with his whole family to Tobolsk, and then to Yekaterinburg.

Even before the execution, Yevgeny Botkin had the opportunity to leave and choose a new job. But he did not leave those to whom he managed to become attached with all his heart. After the last proposal made to him to leave the emperor, he already knew that the king would soon be killed.

“You see, I gave the king my word of honor to stay with him as long as he lives. It is impossible for a man of my position not to keep such a word. I also cannot leave an heir alone. How can I reconcile this with my conscience? You all must understand this, ”Johann Meyer, a former captive Austrian soldier who defected to the Bolsheviks, quotes him in his memoirs.

In his letters, Botkin wrote: “In general, if “faith without deeds is dead,” then “deeds” without faith can exist, and if one of us joins deeds with faith, then this is only by the special grace of God to him. This also justifies my last decision, when I did not hesitate to leave my children as complete orphans in order to fulfill my medical duty to the end, just as Abraham did not hesitate at the request of God to sacrifice his only son to him.

In the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks read out to the emperor and his entire family the decision of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. The sentence was carried out immediately - together with the royal family, the life physician Botkin, the life cook Kharitonov, the valet and the room girl were also shot.

The first shots were fired at Nicholas II. Two bullets that flew past the main target, Botkin was wounded in the stomach. After the assassination of the tsar, the Bolsheviks finished off their victims. Commandant Yurovsky, who oversaw the execution, later indicated that Botkin was still alive for some time. “I finished him off with a shot in the head,” Yurovsky later wrote. The remains of the doctor of the last Russian emperor were subsequently never found - only his pince-nez was found among other material evidence in a pit in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg, where the bodies of the dead were dumped.

The turmoil that engulfed Russia after the 1917 revolution did not just lead to the fall of the monarchy and the destruction of the empire. In Russia, all state institutions collapsed overnight, and all the moral principles of the individual for each individual seemed to have ceased to operate. Evgeny Botkin was one of the few evidences that even in an era of general insanity, revelry and permissiveness, one can remain a man true to his word, honor and duty.

Pray to God for us, holy doctor Eugene!

 

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