Draft:Alexander Hesse

Alexander Avgustovich Hesse
Alexander Hesse in 1927
Born(1889-03-18)18 March 1889
Pskov, Russian Empire
Died25 March 1941(1941-03-25) (aged 52)
Leningrad, Soviet Union
CitizenshipRussian Empire → Estonia → Soviet Union
OccupationPedagogue
SpouseMaria Vasilyevna Hesse (née Denisova)
ChildrenBoris, Irina
Parent(s)August Fyodorovich Hesse (father)
Maria Georgievna Hesse (née Strumpf) (mother)
AwardsOrder of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class

Alexander Avgustovich Hesse (Russian: Александр Августович Гессе; 18 March 1889, Pskov – 25 March 1941, Leningrad) was a Russian pedagogue, White Army officer, and activist in Russian Christian and cultural affairs in the Pechory region of interwar Estonia. He was executed by the Soviet authorities in 1941 and posthumously rehabilitated in 1989. He has been included in the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church of the 20th century.[1]

Family background

Alexander Hesse was born into the family of a prominent Pskov entrepreneur, the prosperous insurance agent August Fyodorovich Hesse. Both his father and mother were originally Narvan burghers, Baltic Germans who professed the Lutheran faith. In the 1890s, August Hesse became the owner of a tannery and joined the merchant estate, and in 1905 he was granted the title of hereditary honorary citizen of Pskov. His son accordingly described himself in official documents as being "of the Evangelical Lutheran confession, from hereditary honorary citizens."

Alexander also had a brother Boris (who died young of tuberculosis) and two half-sisters, Elsa and Maria, from his father's first marriage.

Biography

The Pskov Sergievsky Realschule in 1910
Sergievskaya Street with the corner of the Hesse House. Early 20th century.

Alexander's early childhood was spent in the Aristova house on Sadovaya Street (now Pushkin Street), where his parents rented an apartment. Seven years after his birth, August Hesse built a four-story apartment building on Sergievskaya Street (now Oktyabrsky Prospekt, 12), which has since been known as the "Hesse House". The family of the building's owner moved into one of the apartments. Alexander lived in this apartment even after the revolution, until 1920,[2] when he was forced to relocate to Pechory.

From 1905 to 1908, Alexander Hesse studied at the Pskov Sergievsky Realschule.[3] He then enrolled at Imperial Moscow University, in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics.[4] Pskov journalist and writer Oleg Kalkin writes that Hesse graduated with honours,[5] but according to the testimony of Boris A. Hesse, Alexander's son, he was expelled for participation in student unrest and had to complete his degree as an external student at Imperial Saint Petersburg University (1913).[6] There he also completed a one-year pedagogical course, and in 1914 took a teaching position at one of the capital's educational institutions.

World War I

When World War I began, Alexander Hesse volunteered for the army on the very first day.[7] In later interrogations by the NKVD, he claimed to have been conscripted — a version that found its way into most biographies,[5] although it was untrue: teachers were exempt from mobilisation.[6] He entered service as an enlisted man. After three months he was promoted to acting praporshchik (28 October 1914). He served in the 325th Pskov Infantry Druzhina of the State Militia, where from 15 November 1915 he held the position of clerk of the druzhina court. In 1916 he was promoted to podporuchik (sub-lieutenant). "For exemplary zealous service and labours undertaken during military operations", on 5 October 1916 he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class (order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the Northern Front No. 87, 7 February 1917).[8][9]

After demobilisation in 1917, he returned to Pskov, where he took a position as a mathematics teacher at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium.

Russian Civil War

In February 1918, German forces advancing on Petrograd occupied Pskov. The occupation lasted nine months. During this period, Hesse, for whom German was his native language, worked as an interpreter in the city administration. Meanwhile, the Russian Civil War was engulfing Russia. In the autumn of 1918, the formation of the Pskov Separate Volunteer Corps of the Northern (later Northwestern) White Army began in the occupied city. The population enlisted reluctantly, and by November the corps numbered about 4,500 men, a third of whom were former Imperial officers. Hesse, who tried to stay away from politics, did not join the White movement.

On 25 November 1918, units of the 7th Army of the RKKA occupied Pskov. The Germans left the city without a fight. The White forces attempted to resist but were defeated and retreated into Estonian territory. Soviet power was established in the city. Extraordinary Commissar of the Pskov sector of the front Jānis Fabriciuss set up his headquarters in the "Hesse House". All former Imperial officers remaining in Pskov were required to register with the military and report monthly to the military commissariat, where they had to fill in questionnaires about their attitudes towards the new government, Marxism, Bolshevik policies, and so on. Their freedom of movement was strictly limited.[10] The constant inspections, re-inspections, and restrictions caused resentment among the former career military men.

On 13 May 1919, a joint offensive by Estonian forces and the White Northern Corps of General Rodzyanko towards Petrograd began. Pskov was taken by the Estonians in late May, after which a detachment of Colonel Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz entered the city and immediately began a campaign of White Terror.[11] Nevertheless, it was clear that this authority would not last long. Fearing the return of the Bolsheviks and forced conscription into the Red Army, many of the retired officers who had previously hesitated began to join the Whites. Among them was A. A. Hesse.[5]

On 7 June 1919, Hesse was enlisted in the newly formed Northwestern Army (order of the Commander-in-Chief No. 171, 31 July 1919, Narva).[8] As a man with a mathematical education, he was assigned to the disposal of the army's Inspector of Artillery. First, Hesse served as head of communications of the 1st Separate Light Artillery Battalion, then as commander of a reconnaissance company of the artillery battalion of the 4th Gdov Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to poruchik (lieutenant).[8]

On 26 August, Pskov was retaken by the Red Army. Yudenich's army retreated into Estonia once more to prepare for a new offensive, which began in the autumn. The division of General A. F. Dzerozhinsky, in which Hesse served, initially operated on the auxiliary Pskov–Luga axis, was then placed in reserve, and in late October, after the unsuccessful assault on Petrograd, helped contain the Red Army counteroffensive in the Gatchina area, cutting the Luga–Gdov railway line.

In Gdov, Hesse, who had weak lungs, fell seriously ill. In this condition he was evacuated by the retreating Whites through Narva into Estonia. In December, Dzerozhinsky's division was disarmed by the Estonians on the Narva–Yuryev road and left without shelter in the open field during the winter frost. Epidemic typhus raged among the soldiers.[12] Under these conditions, the ailing Hesse survived quite literally by a miracle. On 22 January 1920, the Northwestern Army was officially dissolved. Having recovered from his illness, Hesse, with the help of his former schoolmate and fellow "Northwesterner" G. V. Svidzinsky, managed to obtain a position as a mathematics teacher at the Russian gymnasium in Pechory, which was then on Estonian territory.

In Pechory

The Pechory County of Estonia during the interwar period was a unique enclave of Russian national culture. The fortunes of the Civil War had led many outstanding representatives of the first wave of Russian emigration to settle there, while others visited Pechory, drawn by the atmosphere of this "miraculously preserved fragment of old Rus'." In the First Republic of Estonia, until the mid-1930s, relatively liberal minority rights legislation was in effect. The Russian language in the Pechory region was official alongside Estonian. The 1920s became a time of vigorous development of public organisations of the Russian population, which in 1923 united into the Union of Russian Educational and Charitable Societies in Estonia.[13]

In Pechory lived and worked a constellation of figures in arts, science, and religion: the poet B. K. Semyonov, chemist N. V. Potin, artist and actor S. S. Beregavskikh, engineer A. P. Rozhansky, musicians and choral conductors M. F. Grivsky, N. A. Vekhnovsky, B. P. Zhemchuzhyn, Bishop Ioann (Bulin), and others. From Petrograd returned the local-born self-taught sculptor A. M. Denisov, formerly a curator of sculptures at the Tsarskoye Selo palace ensemble. At the local gymnasium taught a former privat-docent of Saint Petersburg University, the noted scholar and traveller P. V. Nesterov. Over the years, the town was visited by philosophers Nikolai Berdyaev, Vasily Zenkovsky, Sergei Bulgakov, Lev Zander, Ivan Ilyin, writer Ivan Shmelev, and Feodor Chaliapin gave concerts. The public and cultural life of the Pechory "oasis" was distinguished by ideological and political tolerance, the absence of social and class antagonisms, and a genuine democratic spirit almost impossible under pre-revolutionary Russian conditions.[14]

Alexander Avgustovich Hesse taught in Pechory for 20 years and permanently inscribed his name in the town's history. He was an outstanding educator. Pechory local historian Nikolai Pavlovich Zlatinsky recalled him many years later:

A very kind, truly Russian intelligent man. There are no such teachers today...[10]

A former pupil of Hesse, P. A. Dyatlov, who himself became a teacher, said of him in the 1980s:

I hardly possessed any mathematical abilities, but Alexander Avgustovich's lessons were always a celebration for me. He explained things briefly, but so clearly and so accessibly that one could immediately foresee the course of a solution or a proof. We had many good teachers, but Hesse was especially liked by many. And as a person he was simple, modest, kind-hearted, always ready to help others. I am happy and proud that I had the chance to study under such a teacher.[4]

Alexander Avgustovich became a prominent participant in the cultural and public life of Pechory. He was a member of the local cultural-educational society, assisted in the work of its libraries, took part in organising public concerts and theatrical performances, played the piano performing works of Frédéric Chopin, Alexander Scriabin, and Franz Liszt, and gave lectures. He also participated in the activities of the Russian Christian Movement. It is unknown when Alexander Hesse converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy, but after settling in Pechory he regularly attended services at the Pskov-Caves Monastery.

While living in Estonia, A. A. Hesse took an interest in the fate of the Russian peasantry and had contacts with representatives of the Peasant Russia party, founded in 1921 in Prague by the Socialist Revolutionary S. S. Maslov. He also met with Maslov himself, who visited Pechory in 1927. Hesse was also acquainted with the economist P. A. Bogdanov, who during the Civil War had served as Minister of Agriculture in the Northwestern Government, and in the late 1920s worked as a surveyor in Pechory. With them, Alexander Avgustovich discussed the prospects of peasant policy and co-operation. Bogdanov briefly noted these conversations in his diary:

Alexander Avgustovich Hesse says that nothing is coming of the attempts to organise the peasantry. True, he qualifies it: "Perhaps we don't know how to approach them."[15]

In 1932, Alexander Hesse took an active part in the election campaign to nominate representatives of the Russian population of the Pechory region to the Estonian State Assembly.

Marriage

(left to right) unidentified person, daughter Irina, Maria Fyodorovna Hesse, Alexander Avgustovich Hesse. 1929.

In the early 1930s, A. A. Hesse married Maria Vasilyevna Denisova (1900–1989), a member of the ancient and widespread Pechory Old Believers family of the Pomorian confession.[16] The founders of the Denisov lineage are considered to be the brothers Aleksey and Semyon Denisov, according to tradition descendants of Prince Myshetsky.[17] To this same family belonged the remarkable Pechory sculptor A. M. Denisov, whose works decorated the Russian gymnasium building where Hesse taught. Alexander and Maria Hesse had a son Boris and a daughter Irina.

In 1936, Hesse built his own five-room house in Pechory on Koidu Street (now Sovetskaya Street), taking a bank loan for the purpose.[6] The family lived comfortably, receiving guests on Sundays.

From the early 1930s, and especially after the rise to power of the government of Konstantin Päts, authoritarian and nationalist tendencies intensified in Estonia. An active Estonianization of the Pechory region began. In 1937, the Russian division of the gymnasium was closed and the Russian language was being squeezed out of use. By this time, Hesse's health had begun to deteriorate. His lung disease worsened, and in 1939 he had to convalesce at a resort in southern Estonia. Hesse gradually withdrew from public work and left the cultural-educational society.[4]

Arrest, trial, and execution

On 16 June 1940, the Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Estonia demanding the immediate entry of Soviet troops "to protect against an attack by Hitler"[6] and the removal of the government, threatening military invasion otherwise. Estonia accepted the ultimatum. The next day, units of the Red Army entered Tallinn. The new government was entirely subordinate to instructions from the Kremlin. Arrests and deportations of citizens of the Estonian Republic began, targeting first of all the White émigrés. On 21 July, Soviet power was proclaimed in the country, and on 22 July the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted a declaration on joining the Soviet Union.

Alexander Hesse was arrested on 20 July.

They came during the day, "two men in civilian clothes", and presented a search warrant. "Where are you hiding weapons?" — "We don't have any." They looked in papa's desk, found nothing, of course. "Come with us." That was it. We, like the others, thought it really would be for a short time, after all there was no guilt. But it turned out to be forever.

— Boris Hesse, The Bond of Times Shall Not Be Broken, p. 192[6]

The charges stated: "Being an enemy of the USSR, he did not recognise the communist system, sought to overthrow it and conducted hostile activities directed against the USSR... He expressed himself negatively about the economic policies of the USSR, and disapprovingly assessed the standard of living of Soviet people." The investigators would have liked to build the case against Hesse on his participation in the White movement, but could not officially do so, since from 1937 rank-and-file soldiers and officers of the White Army were subject to rehabilitation. Therefore, the charges concerned his conduct in Estonia under the bourgeois system in the period from 1919 to 1940. The most serious charges were based on his participation in the affairs of the Pechory Cultural-Educational Society, which was declared counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet:

"The counter-revolutionary idea of this organisation was the support of national consciousness in the Russian population of the Pechory region... and this was harmful to the development of class struggle. The counter-revolutionary idea was promoted that only old things are good, and that no artistic values can be expected from the USSR."[4]

The last charge was based on the fact that Hesse, working in the Society's library, had selected primarily works of Russian classical authors for reading.

During the interrogations, Alexander Hesse conducted himself with dignity. He gave no testimony against his acquaintances.[4] The investigators unsuccessfully tried to link him to the Toiling Peasants' Party case, the trial of which was unfolding at the time in the USSR. Hesse, while not denying his meeting with S. S. Maslov, did not acknowledge membership in the party. The defendant was transferred first to Tallinn, then to Leningrad, where on 31 October 1940 the court hearing took place.

At trial, Alexander Avgustovich delivered an eloquent speech describing the selfless efforts of Russian educators to preserve national culture in bourgeois Estonia. It had no effect on the judges. Under the combined Articles 58-4 and 58-11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, A. A. Hesse was sentenced to death. The Supreme Court of the RSFSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Court, to which appeals were filed, upheld the sentence. On 25 March 1941, ten months after his arrest, A. A. Hesse was executed by firing squad.

Rehabilitation and legacy

In 1962, Hesse's widow Maria Vasilyevna petitioned the Pskov Procurator's Office for her husband's rehabilitation, but was refused. In February 1989, one of Alexander Avgustovich's former students, P. A. Dyatlov, submitted a renewed petition. The case review concluded that Hesse was completely innocent. The investigation established facts of biased conduct of the inquiry, as well as the use of impermissible methods by NKVD investigators. In November 1989, A. A. Hesse was rehabilitated "for the absence of any criminal act in his actions." M. V. Hesse did not live to see this event, having died several months earlier.

The memory of A. A. Hesse is carefully preserved by Pechory local historians. His name, as a New Martyr, has been included in the "Pskov Synodikon of those who suffered for the faith of Christ during the years of persecution among the clergy, monastics and laypeople of the Pskov Eparchy of the 20th century"[10] and in the database "Those Who Suffered for Christ" of Saint Tikhon's Orthodox University.[1]

Children

After A. A. Hesse's arrest, his wife and children endured severe hardships. In 1940, the family was deported to Tomsk Oblast, to Vasyugan. The life of the exiles, their privations, and their human drama were captured by Irina Hesse in a unique document — a diary written on birch bark, which the girl kept over many years.[18] The Hesse family members were released from special settlement registration in 1954 and rehabilitated in 1992.[19]

Despite the hardships, Maria Vasilyevna managed to raise both children successfully. Both received higher education and became prominent figures in their respective fields.

  • Irina Alexandrovna Hesse (b. 1927) became a physicist and taught at Novgorod State University. She made an enormous contribution to the training of physics and mathematics teachers. She conducted research in solid-state physics and semiconductor physics, and lectured on various branches of general and theoretical physics. She headed the Department of Physics at NovSU for an extended period. Under her leadership, many laboratory exercises were modernised and new teaching manuals were prepared that remain in use today.[20]
  • Boris Alexandrovich Hesse (1930–2020) became an energy engineer. He participated in the construction of many power plants in the USSR, including the Bratsk hydroelectric power station, and worked in Vietnam. He spent his final years in Zaporizhzhia.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b "Calendar "New Martyrs, Confessors, those who suffered for Christ during the persecutions of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century" for 25 March". sr.isa.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 29 April 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  2. ^ "Hesse, August Fyodorovich". pskoviana.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 18 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Pskov Sergievsky Realschule — Centralized Library System of the City of Pskov". bibliopskov.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e "A man of honour (A. A. Hesse)". krai-pskovsky.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2021.
  5. ^ a b c Kalkin, O. Na myatezhnykh rubezhakh Rossii. Ocherki o pskovichakh-uchastnikakh Belogo dvizheniya na Severo-Zapade v 1918–1922 gg. [On the Rebellious Frontiers of Russia: Essays on Pskovians in the White Movement in the Northwest, 1918–1922]. Pskov, 2003. Pp. 145–150. (in Russian)
  6. ^ a b c d e f "The bond of times shall not be broken. Materials of the Society of Local Historians at the Pechory District Library, Issue 5". vivaldi.pskovbook.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 29 July 2021. Retrieved 29 July 2021.
  7. ^ "Hesse, Alexander Avgustovich — Officers of the Russian Imperial Army". ria1914.info (in Russian). Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  8. ^ a b c "Hesse, Alexander Avgustovich — Russian Estonia". russianestonia.eu (in Russian). Archived from the original on 30 July 2021. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  9. ^ "Hesse, Alexander :: Award documents :: World War I". gwar.mil.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  10. ^ a b c "Hesse, Alexander Avgustovich". www.pstbi.ccas.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  11. ^ "Pskov 1918–1919. The fight against the German occupiers and White Guards". latvjustrelnieki.lv (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 June 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  12. ^ Malishevsky, N. N. (comp.) (2021). Slavnye imena Beloi Rusi. Belaya gvardiya Beloi Rusi [Glorious Names of White Rus. The White Guard of White Rus] (in Russian). Knizhny Mir. p. 512. ISBN 978-5-04-190855-3. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021.
  13. ^ S. G. Isakov. Put' dlinoyu v tysyachu let. Russkie v Estonii. Istoriya kul'tury. Chast' pervaya [A thousand-year journey. Russians in Estonia. A cultural history. Part one] (in Russian). Tallinn: Russian Research Centre in Estonia. 2008. p. 310. ISBN 978-9985-9636-7-8. Archived from the original on 2 August 2021.
  14. ^ "The Pechory Ark". krai-pskovsky.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  15. ^ "Diaries of P. A. Bogdanov. Notebook 5". www.dk1868.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 23 January 2020. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  16. ^ "Irina Hesse" (in Russian). Heimat Zeitung. Retrieved 3 August 2021.[dead link]
  17. ^ "The Denisovs, article in the Orthodox Encyclopedia". www.pravenc.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 13 May 2021. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
  18. ^ "Hesse, I. A. Diary on birch bark / Foreword and text preparation by O. A. Kalkin // Pskov. 2003. No. 19. Pp. 201–235" (PDF). arch.pskgu.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 August 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  19. ^ "Hesse, Irina Alexandrovna". ru.openlist.wiki (in Russian). Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 5 August 2021.
  20. ^ "A Time of Discovery — Novgorod University. November 2013". novsu.ru (in Russian). Archived from the original on 11 July 2014. Retrieved 5 August 2021.


Category:1889 births Category:1941 deaths Category:People from Pskov Category:Russian military personnel of World War I Category:White movement people Category:Russian educators Category:People executed by the Soviet Union Category:Soviet rehabilitations Category:Recipients of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Russian), 3rd class Category:Russians in Estonia

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