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The Decembrists' memoirs
Not on occasion or anniversary, I'd like to give a link to the fellow Russians and our foreign friends this link to this gathering of Decembrists' memoirs.
http://decemb.hobby.ru/index.shtml?memory
All are in Russian (sorry, couldn't find any translation).
What interesting is there? So far I've read these two memoirs: of a decembrist exiled to Chita, and another decembrist's wife who followed her husband and lived in their settlement.
It is interesting to read what happened to them, what they cared about. Also I was pleased to reand and get the pace of that life. Let me explain: you may read a large article concerning a decembrist's life, but the exile would be mentioned in a brief passage, mentioning facts and commonplaces - you know them - winter, cold, unbearable work in a labour camp. Here you may read how it was really.
P. E. Annenkova. The Notes of a Decembrist's Wife
A. P. Belyayev. "Of Memoirs" (my translation of the title)
I guess, having changed their life so harshly, they must have really suffered, though without noting this in the diary or memoirs. The settlement in the East Siberia wasn't a Disneyland, though it wasn't a nazist camp (like it is depicted, say in Fate of a Man by Mikhail Sholokhov). The wifes and the decembrists themselves were cordially received on their way.
So, I hope this would be new and interesting to our foreign friends who learn Russian. For me this was just a blank spot.
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hey i just started learning russian so excuse my ignorance. but what where the decembrists. could you elaborate in english or basic russian
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