Vuyala is our hero.
Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky(aka Nicholas Roussel).
Born on December 15, 1850 in the city of Mogilev, died on April 30, 1930 in the city of Chongqing (China).
Big man! Senator of the Territory of Hawaii(since 1900), Senate President Territories of Hawaii (from 1901 to 1902).
And at the same time - a leader of the revolutionary movement in Russia, Switzerland, France, Bulgaria, the USA, Japan, China, one of the founders of the socialist movement in Romania.
And also an ethnographer, geographer, chemist and biologist, a member of the American Society of Genetics.

Born into an impoverished noble family. In the gymnasium I read a lot of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev and Herzen and realized that the educational institutions of Tsarist Russia were “tools of police drill, where they fill their heads with “metaphysical, linguistic and theological” rubbish. Both of his sisters, Nadezhda and Evgenia, also became revolutionaries. The brothers turned out to be resistant to propaganda and were not noticed in revolutionary activities.
Sudzilovsky was a bully, but he was an intelligent man. “An instrument of police drill,” he graduated from the Mogilev gymnasium with honors and in 1868 entered the law department of St. Petersburg University, from where he was expelled for participating in student riots. In 1869, he transferred to the medical faculty of Kyiv University, since riot participants were prohibited from studying at other universities.
In 1873-1874 he got a job as a paramedic in a prison hospital in Nikolaevsk and tried to arrange a prisoner escape. His plan was discovered, he went into hiding and fled Russia.

From that time on, Sudzilovsky left childish fun and entered a serious international orbit.

Naturally, since 1875 it has been acquired in London. And naturally, he is not involved in any riots here. Having come to his senses, he works at St. George's Hospital and communicates with Karl Marx.

Wikipedia says that in 1877 Sudzilovsky graduated from the university in Bucharest. In total, he hung around as a student from 1868 to 1877 - in St. Petersburg, Kyiv, London and Bucharest.
He was among the organizers of the socialist movement in Romania.

In 1876 he took a new name and moved to Turkey, Roussel took part in the April uprising in Bulgaria. From now on he calls himself Nicholas Roussel.
The Turks massacre the Bulgarians, Russia sends in troops, and the Balkan War of 1877-1878 begins. Roussel conducts revolutionary propaganda among the Russian troops.

The war is over. After checking in in Bulgaria and Greece, Agent Roussel returns to Romania. But not for long. For subversive activities, the Romanian government expels him from the country. Romania is an ally of Russia in the Balkans, so up to this point all of Roussel’s activities can be reduced to the formula “Anything, just to somehow harm the hated Motherland.”

To begin with, in 1887 Roussel moved to San Francisco. Here he organizes a campaign of persecution against the Orthodox Bishop Vladimir, accusing him of embezzling church money and all sorts of mortal sins. At the same time, he communicates with other equally shady fraers E.E. Lazarev and L.B. Goldenberg on the topic of organizing regular escapes of political prisoners from Siberia to America.

In 1892, Roussel suddenly moved to the Hawaiian Islands. Then he calmed down and went up sharply. He became the owner of a coffee plantation and also practiced medicine.

What's interesting about this story is this. There is no visible connection between Russia and Hawaii. Hawaii is a completely different story in British politics. Question: why did Roussel suddenly go to Hawaii in 1892?

Let's remember the story.

The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by English captain James Cook in 1778. Europeans found several state entities on the Hawaiian Islands, which at the beginning of the 19th century merged into a single kingdom.
The development of interest in sugar cane production caused the United States to become concerned about the progress of democracy in Hawaii.
Wikipedia says that the local population, faced with infections brought from outside, to which it had no immunity, died out: by the end of the century, about 30 thousand people remained of the 300 thousand Polynesian population.
In 1887, armed groups of whites forced the adoption of a “Constitution”, which remained in history under the name “Bayonet Constitution”. Since Liliuokalani, the last queen of the islands, tried to challenge the provisions of this "constitution". Then a group of local American origins, calling for help from American sailors from a ship stationed in the bay, carried out a coup in 1893 and overthrew the queen. On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed by the provisional government. The first and only president of the republic was Sanford Dole, who served in office from 1894 to 1900. His government survived several attempts to restore the monarchy, including the Wilcox Plot in 1895. The Republic of Hawaii was recognized by all states that recognized the kingdom at one time. In 1900, Hawaii received the status of a US territory, and Dole became its governor.

Now, I think, the reader already understands why our Roussel was suddenly overcome by the desire to become a planter in Hawaii in 1892! After all, right before his eyes, predatory American imperialism was finally taking Hawaii out of the British sphere of influence.

Roussel also uses the methods of the Russian “populists” here in Hawaii. And his “going to the people” is highly respected among the aborigines (Kanaks). Roussel will have a new nickname - Kauka Luchini (which means “Russian doctor”). He conducts explanatory conversations, teaches the aborigines about revolutionary struggle, and organizes the “Hawaii Self-Government Party” (Home Rulers), designed to fight for the interests of the indigenous people.

At this time, in Hawaii, another agent and truth-seeker is fighting against the growing United States right before our eyes - Robert William Wilcox, nicknamed the “Iron Duke of Hawaii,” desperately trying to prevent the inevitable absorption of the Hawaiian Islands by the States. Wilcox acts as a supporter of the deposed Queen Liliuokalani and raises the peoples oppressed by the Americans to fight against the hated American colonialism.

Royalist and Republican forces clashed at the foot of Diamond Head on January 6 and 7, 1895. Manoa was the battlefield on January 9th. Casualties were light and only Carter, a member of a prominent island family, was killed. The Royalists were quickly routed and Wilcox spent several days on the run before being captured. All royalist leaders were arrested on January 16, when Liliuokalani was taken into custody and imprisoned at Iolani Palace. Wilcox was arrested and convicted of treason. This time he was convicted on February 23, 1895 and sentenced to death along with five other leaders. Some were released after testifying against others, and his sentence was commuted to 35 years in prison. On January 1, 1898, he was pardoned by Sanford Dole, President of the Republic, who pressured Liliuokalani to renounced claims to the throne in exchange for the life and freedom of those sentenced to death.
The queen was put on trial. The prosecutor accused her of treason, since she should have known that the weapons were intended to overthrow the republic. In response, the queen made a speech in which she regarded the events of 1893 as a coup d'etat, said that she had not sworn allegiance to either the provisional government or the Republic of Hawaii, that she did not recognize the right of the republic to judge her, but that she did not know about the conspiracy and for the benefit of of his people opposes violent actions. She was sentenced to five years in prison and labor, and fined $10,000. She served her sentence in a bedroom at Iolani Palace in Honolulu, which was under 24-hour security. Eight months later, by order of Dole, she was transferred to house arrest, and a year later she was amnestied and left for Washington.
There she started a lawsuit with the federal government over crown lands; in the end, the Hawaiian legislature gave her a pension of 4 thousand dollars a year, and also left her with income from a sugar plantation of 24 km². She died in 1917 from a stroke.
Liliuokalani is known as a writer and songwriter; While in prison, she wrote the Hawaiian hymn Aloha Oe, as well as a book about the history of the country.
Thus ended the history of the Hawaiian royal family.

In 1898, at the height of the Spanish-American War, the United States annexed Hawaii and in 1900, US President William McKinley signed the Hawaii Territory Government Act (also known as the Hawaiian Organic Act), which created:

the institution of the Territorial Governor, appointed by the current President of the United States,
bicameral Legislative body of the Territory, consisting of an elected House of Representatives and Senate,
Supreme Court.

The USA gives local residents a choice between the Republican and Democratic parties.

However, a third party, created by this time by Roussel-Sudzilovsky, suddenly joined the election fight.

In 1900, with the support of the indigenous population, Nikolai Sudzilovsky and a number of his supporters entered the Senate of the Hawaiian Islands, and in 1901 N.K. Sudzilovsky-Roussel was elected the first president of the Senate of the Hawaiian Islands. In this position he managed to carry out reforms in support of indigenous people, but could not resist US influence.
In 1902 he was forced to leave his post after the betrayal of his supporters.

The Hawaiian epic is the undoubted apogee of the biography of our hero.

Having lost the last battle for Hawaii, Agent Roussel is again transferred to the Russian front. He heads to Japan, which is about to start a war with Russia (1904).
During the Russo-Japanese War, he carried out active socialist propaganda among Russian prisoners of war in Japan. Publishes the newspaper “Russia and Japan”.
One of his newspaper collaborators is Alexey Novikov-Priboy, who later wrote a book about the Battle of Tsushima.
This Novikov-Priboy is a sailor of the Baltic Fleet. In 1903 he was arrested for revolutionary propaganda. As "unreliable" he was transferred to the 2nd Pacific Squadron on the battleship "Eagle". He took part in the Battle of Tsushima, was captured by the Japanese, and after returning from captivity to his native village in 1906, Novikov wrote two essays about the Battle of Tsushima: “Madmen and Fruitless Victims” and “For the Sins of Others,” published under the pseudonym A. Zatyorty. The brochures were immediately banned by the government, and in 1907 Novikov was forced to go underground, as he was threatened with arrest. He fled first to Finland, and then, naturally, in England. From 1912 to 1913, the writer lived with M. Gorky in Capri. Winner of the Stalin Prize, second degree (1941).

But let's go back to the beginning of the century. After the start of the 1905 revolution, Roussel and Priboy hatched the idea of ​​arming and sending 60 thousand prisoners to Russia to help the rebels. At the insistence of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sudzilovsky was deprived of American citizenship for “anti-American activities.”

An unusual alignment for the Soviet worldview: The US and Russia are natural allies against a common enemy, British mistress of the seas. This was how it was until 1917.

He spent the last years of his life in the Philippines and China, where he met Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Soviet government since 1921 suddenly paid him pension, as a personal pensioner of the All-Union Society of Political Prisoners. Roussel was never in prison or in exile, but he wrote in the magazine “Katorga and Exile.”

But Sudzilovsky did not deign not to go to the USSR, which was made happy by the long-awaited Revolution. Bird of the wrong flight. He died on April 30, 1930 (at the age of 79) in Chongqing, China.

He spoke 8 European, Chinese and Japanese languages.

AND The life of this man most deserves the epithet “strange.” At one time, they wrote and talked about Nikolai Sudzilovsky quite regularly, but then they practically forgot.

Meanwhile, this extraordinary person in every sense was destined to see a lot and contribute to the destinies of several states. One of the dictionaries even awarded him the title “the last encyclopedist of the twentieth century.”

But in history, Sudzilovsky, who spoke ten languages ​​and made important discoveries in the field of medicine and genetics, remained not thanks to his extensive knowledge.

N Ikolay Sudzilovsky was born on December 15, 1850 in Mogilev into the noble family of a minor judicial official, Konstantin Vladimirovich Sudzilovsky.

The family was wealthy, but then went bankrupt and was forced to move to the estate of relatives, located near Novouzensk, Saratov province. The eldest of eight children, Nikolai helped his parents with housework since childhood.

After graduating with honors from the Mogilev gymnasium, in 1868 he entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. While still in the gymnasium, having witnessed the massacre of participants in the Polish uprising of 1863-1864, and then having become acquainted with the works of the then fashionable Herzen and Chernyshevsky, Sudzilovsky early came to the conclusion that Russia is a “prison of nations”, and Russian higher educational institutions are “tools of the police force.” drills,” and decided to devote himself to the fight for the rights of students.

This resulted primarily in the fact that in October-November 1868 he took part in several student demonstrations, for which he was immediately expelled from the course. However, this did not particularly upset Sudzilovsky - by that time he had become disillusioned with jurisprudence, and was much more interested in medicine. The only university to which he was allowed to transfer was Kiev.

T am Sudzilovsky also quickly proved himself.

In 1873, at the age of 23, he became the head of the so-called Kyiv Commune, one of the first socialist student associations in Russia.

From reading emigrant literature and dreams of fighting despotism, the young people decided to get down to business: Nikolai took part in “going to the people” in the city of Pokrovsk (now Engels) in the Saratov province, and then got a job as a paramedic in the prison hospital of the city of Nikolaevsk (now Pugachev, Saratov region) and participated in organizing the escape of prisoners: he added sleeping pills to the guards’ tea. But one of them nevertheless raised the alarm, the escape failed, and a real hunt began for Sudzilovsky.

The police report, where the name of the wanted man was listed as number 10, said:

“About 25 years old; height is slightly below average; brown hair; face is clean; the nose is quite large; beard is small and sparse; dresses casually; in costume he looks like a craftsman.”

Hiding under the name of a German colonist, Sudzilovsky fled abroad in 1875 through Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow and Odessa. His place of refuge was London, where the newly minted emigrant got a job at St. George's Hospital.

In 1876, emigrant circles attracted Nicholas to the preparation of the anti-Turkish April Uprising in Bulgaria. Then Sudzilovsky took the pseudonym Nicholas Roussel, which eventually became his new name.

In parallel with revolutionary activities, he continued to practice medicine, in 1877 he defended his dissertation “On antiseptic methods used in surgery” at the University of Bucharest, and then headed the hospital in Iasi.

But in April 1881, after a gathering of local revolutionaries celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Paris Commune and at the same time the death of Alexander II, Sudzilovsky was expelled from Romania.

Nicholas Roussel's travels across Europe began - Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, France, Belgium...

In 1887, at the invitation of his brother, he moved to San Francisco, where he opened his own clinic. His faithful assistant was his wife, Leokadia Vikentievna Shebeko. By 1891, the Sudzilovskys received American passports. Nevertheless, the revolutionary doctor spoke extremely skeptically about his new homeland.

“The states represent a state based on extreme individualism,” he wrote. - They are the center of the world, and the world and humanity exist for them only to the extent that they are necessary for their personal pleasure and satisfaction... Relying on the omnipotence of their capital, like a walnut sponge, like a cancerous tumor, they absorb into themselves all the vital juices from the surrounding life without mercy".

It’s aptly said, isn’t it?..

1890 the year was marked by a major conflict between Sudzilovsky and Bishop of Aleutian and Alaskan Vladimir (Sokolovsky-Avtonomov). Sudzilovsky began a real campaign of persecution against him, accusing the church hierarch of pedophilia and embezzlement of public funds.

In response, the bishop anathematized the emigrant and forbade parishioners to be treated by him, Sudzilovsky filed a lawsuit... A huge scandal broke out, the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, K. P. Pobedonostsev, intervened in the matter, and as a result, Bishop Vladimir was transferred from San Francisco on June 8, 1891. -Francisco to Voronezh.

However, the long-term litigation put an end to Sudzilovsky’s American life - having become completely disillusioned with the USA, he got a job as a ship’s doctor on a ship sailing between San Francisco and the Hawaiian Islands. He liked this remote American province so much that the family soon moved to the most civilized and densely populated of the Hawaiian Islands - Oahu.

Near an extinct volcano, the Sudzilovskys rented a plot of land measuring 160 acres, built a house, and acquired a small coffee plantation. At the same time, Sudzilovsky continued his medical practice, for which he received from local residents the honorary name “kauka lukini” - “good doctor”. Nikolai Konstantinovich quickly gained the trust of the natives and began to enjoy enormous authority among them.

U the structure of life in Hawaii in many ways seemed unfair to Sudzilovsky, and he soon began to create from the local residents a kind of revolutionary circles, at the meetings of which he retold chapters from the works of Marx to the natives in his own words. Over time, this resulted in the creation of a party of “independents” who advocated independence of the islands from the United States, taxation and healthcare reform.

In 1900, in accordance with the decision of the US President, an administrative reform was carried out in the Hawaiian Islands - a bicameral parliament appeared there, consisting of a House of Representatives and a Senate.

The “independents,” led by Sudzilovsky, entered the election struggle and, largely unexpectedly for themselves, achieved major success - first, Sudzilovsky became a senator, and in 1901, the first president of the Senate, that is, the head of the Hawaiian parliament. (Many sources call him the “President of Hawaii,” which is not true.)

The Library of the US Congress contains an issue of the Hawaiian newspaper The Pacific commercial advertiser dated December 12, 1905 with an article about Dr. Nicholas Roussel.

As speaker of the Hawaiian parliament, Sudzilovsky intended to carry out truly revolutionary changes on the islands. They planned the abolition of the death penalty, the introduction of free secondary education, and a radical reform of the tax system.

Such large-scale changes naturally affected the interests of local landowners and colonialists, and a serious behind-the-scenes struggle ensued in parliament. Sudzilovsky, inexperienced in the intricacies of legal politics, lost this battle and in 1902 was forced to leave his post. His next refuge after Hawaii was China, although he retained American citizenship.

IN While living in Shanghai, Sudzilovsky again “took up his old ways” - he began to hatch plans for an invasion of Russia by an armed detachment of emigrant revolutionaries, who were supposed to free political prisoners in Siberia.

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. he planned an even more ambitious action - to arm 40 thousand Russian prisoners of war with Japanese money and, having landed them in the Far East, seize key stations of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and then move on to Moscow.

Why he needed this is difficult to imagine; perhaps the 55-year-old emigrant was simply intoxicated by the air of the rebellious 1905... But the most amazing thing is that Sudzilovsky practically managed to convince the Japanese government to release the prisoners and even provide ships to transport them to the continent!..

It is unknown how this adventure would have ended if Azev, and through him, the Russian government, had not become aware of Sudzilovsky’s plans. In addition, the war came to an end, and Sudzilovsky’s project simply became irrelevant.

As a result, at the insistence of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the emigrant was deprived of US citizenship... for anti-American activities, although he did not sin anything against the United States, but was engaged in anti-Russian activities on a rare scale...

Disappointed by the failure of his idea, Sudzilovsky moved to the Philippines, where he founded a private hospital. After five years spent in Manila, he moved to the Japanese city of Nagasaki, where he also practiced medicine.

Portrait of Sudzilovsky from the book of the revolutionary and political emigrant Yegor Lazarev with the long title “Hawaiian Senator (N.K. Roussel) and the leaders of Russian Orthodoxy Bishop Vladimir and K.P. Pobedonostsev. With documents from the publisher attached." Geneva, 1902

The news of the February Revolution of 1917 delighted the old emigrant. But he was even more delighted by the news about the October events in Russia.

“You made the greatest revolution in October,” Sudzilovsky wrote to his brother Sergei in Samara. “If you are not crushed by the opponents of the revolution, then you will create an unprecedented society and will build communism... How happy you are, how I would like to be with you and build this new society.”

Relatives themselves called Nikolai Konstantinovich to return to his homeland, especially since, thanks to the petition of the Society of Former Political Prisoners, he, as "Veteran of the Russian Revolution", a government pension was assigned - 100 rubles in gold monthly.

But, apparently, Sudzilovsky had serious doubts about whether it was worth coming to Soviet Russia. He referred to the fact that he had two adopted sons, whom he could not abandon to their fate. And Sudzilovsky’s third wife, Japanese Ohara, was not eager to go to a distant and incomprehensible country.

Only in 1930 did the elderly emigrant finally decide to move to the USSR. He notified his Samara relatives about this in a letter. But the health of the 79-year-old man could not withstand the long move. On April 30, 1930, having contracted pneumonia, Nikolai Konstantinovich died on the platform of the station in the Chinese city of Tianjin. The urn with his ashes was kept in the family until 1946, and then was buried in the family tomb of the Ohara family on the Japanese island of Amakuza. The obituary on the death of Sudzilovsky, posted in the Soviet magazine “Katorga and Link”, said:

“If we sum up his amazingly meaningful life and everything that he did and saw, of course, this content is more than enough for more than one hundred years of human life.”

One can, of course, argue about what Mogilev resident Nikolai Sudzilovsky brought more into this world - good or harm - but you can’t argue with the fact that he really was an extremely extraordinary person...

Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky

Sudzilovsky (Roussel) Nikolai Konstantinovich (1850-1930) - Belarusian thinker, publicist, ethnographer, entomologist, chemist, biologist, first and last encyclopedist of the 20th century. He spoke 8 European, Chinese and Japanese languages. First President of the Hawaiian Senate (1900). Member of the American Society of Genetics, a number of scientific societies in Japan and China. As a doctor, S. is known for his work in the field of surgery, methods of treating tuberculosis, and the theory of eye diseases. As a geographer, S. discovered a number of islands in the central Pacific Ocean. His geographical descriptions of Hawaii and the Philippines, published in the 1890s, were included in anthologies and textbooks for schools and universities.

As a thinker and politician, S. went through a complex creative evolution. As a youth he held positions nihilism, which subsequently formed a significant element of populist ideology. A literary circle created by student S. promoted the socialist ideal, seeing ways of its implementation in the moral improvement of man (1870). Trying to practically implement it, S. created a community built on these principles (Kiev community). In 1873, S. with a group of like-minded people (V. Debogoriy-Mokrievich, V. Donetsky) went to Zurich with the goal of organizing a trip to North America to create communes there. Gets acquainted with the ideas of Bakunin and Lavrov, without completely sharing them. Lack of funds forced the group to return to Russia. S. continues his studies at the medical faculty of Kyiv University, then actively participates in political discussions and practical actions of the populists (“going to the people”, “Kiev community”). After the trial against the participants in the “going to the people” (1877-1878), S. illegally leaves Russia and goes to London, where he meets the functionaries of the First International (Marx, Engels, V. Vrublevsky, Lavrov). Then he leaves for the Balkans, completes his education at the University of Bucharest and organizes a “book expedition”. In Bulgaria, S., together with Kh. Botev, takes an active part in organizing peasant uprisings. Analyzing the reasons for the defeat of the uprising, S. comes to the conclusion that Bakunin’s thesis about the readiness of the people for a socialist revolution is not only not applicable to Russia in the 1870s, but is also incorrect in principle. 1870-1880s - a new stage in the creative evolution and practical activity of S., associated with Romania.

The populist ideology that forms the basis of his worldview is undergoing a significant transformation. According to S., a social revolution is a people’s revolution, and revolutionary ideas cannot be imposed on the people; a revolution occurs when a certain set of material and moral conditions is present, and artificially pushing the situation can only lead to a delay in the revolution and the death of leading figures (like this happened in Bulgaria). (In S.’s opinion, “... if society wants to preserve the ability for a historical society and progress, it needs to orient the mental constitution of its members towards norms of behavior within the boundaries of democracy and free choice.”) In 1877 S. defended his doctoral dissertation on the antiseptic method treatment in surgery. For the first time, a double surname (S.-Rousselle) appeared on a doctoral diploma. This was due to the fact that Russia was involved in the war against Turkey and Russian troops were passing through the territory of Romania, and he was still on the list of especially dangerous state criminals at No. 10. S. actively combined medical practice with revolutionary activities. For the treatment of the wounded, S. was awarded a gold medal, and for his political ideas he was exiled to the provinces (1879). For organizing a civil funeral for the Romanian revolutionary Zubka-Codrian, S. is sent to Iasi, where he joins a socialist circle and becomes an ideologist and one of the editors of the socialist newspaper Bessarabia.

On March 18, 1881, the day of the Paris Commune was celebrated in Galati with rallies; for organizing these events, S. was arrested and sentenced to deportation to Turkey. S., his wife and P. Axelrod managed to escape to Paris. S. travels around Europe, combining scientific research with revolutionary activities, works in the “Emancipation of Labor” group, but does not completely break with populism. 1883 is a year of losses for S: his wife and daughters return to Russia, his beloved father dies, his native estate is ruined, the revolutionary movement in Europe fades. S. falls into severe depression, from which he recovers only after moving to the USA. In 1887, S. opened a private medical institution, became vice-president of the Greek-Russian-Slavic Society, and participated in the work of the Russian Society for Self-Education (transformed in 1890 into the Russian Social Democratic Society). Actively engaged in journalism: “In an ocean village”, “Letter from America”, “On the role of the Orthodox Church in Russia”, “Letters from the Sandwich Islands”, “How to live on the Hawaiian Islands?” etc. A revolutionary not in words, but in deeds - S. was the first to debunk the US colonialist policy in the Hawaiian Islands and became a real defender of the Hawaiian people. S. creates the “Home Rulers” party and in 1890 is elected senator from the Kanakas (native residents of Hawaii), and in 1891 becomes president of the Hawaiian Republic. A time of stormy reforms, anxieties, intrigues and betrayals began, which he experienced very painfully. When once again his supporters (Kanaks), having received bribes, voted against his bill, which could improve the lives of the Kanakas themselves, he could not stand it and resigned. In May 1905, S. appealed to the Japanese Consul General with a request to give him a recommendation for a trip to Japan to visit the camps of Russian prisoners, the request was granted. In Japan, S. is engaged in active propaganda among soldiers, combining this with their treatment. He organized the sending of a group of Russian prisoners of war to Russia and wrote for them a special brochure “In Captivity. Collection in memory of war and captivity,” which was a program of struggle for social and national liberation.

In April 1906, the “East Asian Branch of the Russian Revolutionary Party” and the newspaper “Volya” were created in Nagasaki; during two years of work in this newspaper, S. wrote more than 50 articles. There was a division of revolutionary-democratic forces, which S. could not understand and accept: he tried to unite all the revolutionary forces in his party “Union for Assistance to People's Liberation”, the attempt failed. S. withdrew from practical revolutionary activity in 1908: his journalistic activity also narrowed, disappointments, years and illnesses began to take their toll. S. published the following works: “Thoughts Out Loud” (1910), “East and West” (1916), “Frank Words” (1917; S. enthusiastically accepted the February Revolution, and categorically rejected the October Bolshevik revolution as a “zigzag of history” - this the work is directed against the latter), “German culture in Russia”, “Two centuries of German culture in Russia”. After the civil war, S.'s views on the socialist revolution changed, he announced this in the press, and as a result was forced to leave for China. In China, S. created in 1921 the “Committee for Relief to the Starving People of Russia” - the first in Asia. In September 1923, S. received documents granting him a personal pension as a veteran of the revolution - this is the only recognition of merit that the Soviet regime gave him. March 30, 1930 S. dies of pneumonia. R. Tagore called him the most interesting Slavic writer of the 20th century. In S.’s homeland, Belarus, a monographic work by M.I. Iosko was devoted to the study of his life and work; A number of studies were published abroad (in particular, a two-volume edition in Japanese).

T.K. Kandrichina, N.A. Kandrichin

The latest philosophical dictionary. Comp. Gritsanov A.A. Minsk, 1998.

Read further:

Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).

The author of this post reinvents the wheel. Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky (1850-1930) is not an “adventurer”, as he is called below (I was also awarded such a nickname by Nikolai Mitrokhin in the superficial book “Russian Party. Movement of Russian Nationalists in the USSR 1953-1985” published in 2003), but Russian passionary for whom the globe was too small. He is a patriot of Russia, and wherever he found himself, everyone turned to Russia - as he admitted, “I did not part with it for a minute.” And when in 1877, under conditions of revolutionary activity, he was forced to take a different surname, he chose “Rousselle,” which translated means “Russian.” He began as a populist of the seventies from the “active” faction, selflessly “went to the people”, founded the Kiev Commune of Revolutionaries, is considered the founder of the socialist movement in Romania, communicated with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and with many other revolutionaries of Russia and Europe, was friends with the founder of the modern Chinese nation by Sun Yat-sen and the Japanese socialist Kotoku Denjiro. He became famous as an excellent doctor; he discovered the so-called. “Roussell bodies” that appear during inflammatory processes in the mucous membranes. He is one of the founders of agricultural physics. He is an inquisitive ethnographer. His philosophical-socialist and journalistic-political works are gaining new relevance in the current phase of globalization. Having won extreme popularity among the native Hawaiian Kanakas with his medical and political practice, he was elected from them to the local Senate and in 1901-1902 was the President of the Hawaiian Islands, fought for the annexation of this strategic and rich territory to the future progressive Russia, to whose just transformation he dedicated life.

At hand is one of the thorough books about him - Iosko Mikhail Ivanovich. Nikolai Sudzilovsky-Rousselle. Life, revolutionary activity and worldview (Minsk: Belarusian State University Publishing House, 1976. - 336 pp.). The epigraph is his words, an echo of the famous commandment of Jesus Christ (Gospel of Luke 9:60): “Whoever faces the past and not the future is not a revolutionary. Having left Russia in 1875, I did not stop defending my positions and at the same time saving my soul from the dominance of predators in different parts of the globe... I am happy that after 40 years of service to the cause of the revolution in Russia I lived to see the fall of our Bastille.”

By the way, Nikolai Sudzilovsky is not the first person from Russia to leave a glorious mark on the history of distant lands. For example, the Kamchatka exile Maurice Samuelovich Benevsky is known, who in 1771 raised an uprising in the Bolsherechensky fort, captured the galley "St. Peter" and with a group of comrades of 70 people went to the South Seas, tried unsuccessfully to capture the island of Taiwan, settled for some time in France, there, from the remaining and joined Russians and French, he assembled a detachment of 21 officers and 237 sailors and in 1774 landed on Madagascar, where on October 1, 1776, local elders proclaimed him the “new Anpansakabe,” the supreme ruler of the island. The French killed him on May 23, 1786 during the assault on Mauritania (the capital of Madagascar, which he founded), and he was buried there next to two Russian comrades, with whom he escaped from Kamchatka. And Maurice Benevsky remained in history as the “Emperor of Madagascar.”

The following somewhat lightweight post about Nikolai Sudzilovsky-Roussell is useful to read, especially since serious academic monographs are difficult to master. - The original was taken from leon_rumata in How a Russian revolutionary ruled in Hawaii

You won't believe it, but this is reality!
And this is the most amazing thing in this incredible story...
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Russian President of an American State

Presidential Palace in Honolulu, Frank Davey, 1898

On February 20, 1901, the Senate of the Territory of Hawaii was created by the US government. During the first elections in the young republic, he was elected first senator and then president of the first republican government of the Hawaiian Islands. Russian adventurer who fled from the Tsarist Secret Service - Nikolai Sudzilovsky, amazing scientist, geographer, chemist, revolutionary movement leader in Russia, Switzerland, England, Bulgaria, USA and China.

Nikolai Sudzilovsky - the son of a former large Mogilev landowner, forced to move to the Saratov province to live with relatives. While still a student at the Faculty of Medicine of Kyiv University, Nikolai joined the group of the rebel populist Vladimir Karpovich Debagoriy-Mokrievich. Without finishing his fifth year, Sudzilovsky arrived on the Volga to conduct anti-government propaganda among workers and peasants. Nikolai Alexandrovich got a job as an office worker at the Pokrovsk railway station. He did his work diligently, conscientiously, without ostentatious fuss.

The station manager had no idea that a young, intelligent-looking clerk under a uniform railway jacket was bringing books, brochures, newspapers prohibited by the tsarist censorship to the station and reading them to the railway workers and peasants of the Pokrovskaya settlement in some empty freight car driven into a dead end..

Knowing that the police, and not only the Pokrovskaya one, meticulously identify the identity of everyone who comes into their field of vision, Nikolai Konstantinovich considered it reasonable not to tease the geese and leave the Pokrovskaya Sloboda. Wherever Sudzilovsky went, everywhere he felt the breath of police bloodhounds catching up behind him. This circumstance forced the underground worker to move abroad illegally.

“On the globe,” wrote Sudzilovsky, “it is unlikely that there will be another such fertile corner as the Hawaiian Islands...”

In Romania, Nikolai Konstantinovich again sat down to the medical textbooks he had once left behind in Kyiv in order to finally complete his interrupted education. When submitting an application to the local university to take the exams to become a doctor, Sudzilovsky was forced to hide the fact that his studies at Kiev University were interrupted due to his arrest.

The joy of receiving his doctor of medicine certificate was overshadowed by the news that the Russian police were again on his trail. Sudzilovsky changes his last name, now he is called Doctor Roussel.

Fleeing from the pursuit of agents of the Third Section, Nikolai Konstantinovich ends up in Turkey, then in France. Then Sudzidilovsky-Rousselle leaves overseas, to North America. Having settled in San Francisco, he, thanks to his excellent knowledge of medicine and conscientious attitude to business, soon acquired a wide practice among the local population.

And Nikolai Konstantinovich does not feel safe in San Francisco. Now he was afraid not only of the bloodhounds of the Russian Empire, but also of American justice, which he dared to criticize. I had to leave my habitable place once again.

“It is becoming a landmark of the island and is visited by foreign travelers. Including the Russian doctor Sergei Sergeevich Botkin"

In 1892, Nikolai Roussel got a job as a ship's doctor on a ship sailing to the Hawaiian (Sandwich) Islands. The new land struck Nikolai Konstantinovich with its appearance, its diverse tropical vegetation, and the diversity of its sixty thousand population. “On the globe,” Sudzilovsky-Roussel wrote several years later in his essays published under a pseudonym in the Russian magazine “Books of the Week,” “it is unlikely that there will be another such fertile corner as the Hawaiian Islands...”

No more than half of all residents lived there; the remaining fifty percent were North Americans, British, French, Germans, Austrians, but there were especially many Japanese and Chinese. Dozens of families resettled from Russia settled on Sahu Island. The Roussel family also joined them. Then, seeking solitude, Nikolai Konstantinovich moved to the island of Hawaii. Near one of the extinct volcanoes, he rented a plot of 160 acres, built a house and started growing coffee. Then bananas, pineapples, lemons, oranges appeared on his plantations...

The blatant exploitation of the indigenous population by the Americans outraged Dr. Roussel. He, as before in Russia, began to organize a kind of revolutionary circles among the Kanaka natives, where he explained to the Hawaiians the lawlessness being committed against them.

“Roussel-Sudzilovsky himself understood that he would not be able to resist such a major power as America for long.”

Years passed. Kuaka-Lukini ("Russian Doctor") became the most popular person on the islands. He not only restored the health of the sick, but also gave a lot of business advice to the natives, and fairly dealt with their disputes and feuds. Kuaca Luquini, as a landmark of the island, is visited by foreign travelers; Russian doctor Sergei Sergeevich Botkin arrives.

In 1892, the Americans decided to form a republic in the Hawaiian Islands instead of a kingdom. In the election campaign, according to established custom, there was a struggle between the Republican and Democratic parties. But a man was found - Doctor Roussel - who became the head of the newly organized third national party. The new association called itself the “Independent Party.” The leader of the party, who had gone through the school of propaganda work in Russia, skillfully conducted propaganda among the Kanaks and enjoyed their endless trust. Therefore, when state elections were held in the Hawaiian Islands a year later, Kuala Lukini was elected first as a senator, then as president of the first republican government of the Hawaiian Islands.

“He was constantly looking for opportunities to personally participate in the revolutionary struggle.”

The islanders were not deceived in choosing a new president. The Russian doctor carried out several broad progressive reforms, significantly easing the plight of the Kanaks...

Roussel-Sudzilovsky himself understood that he would not be able to resist such a major power as America for long. It was difficult for him not only to defend the republic, but also to defend himself personally. The Hawaiian state did not have its own army; only a militia detachment led by a colonel maintained order on the islands. Yet Dr. Roussel remained president until 1902. During this time, he managed to do a lot of good for the native population.

No matter what country Nikolai Roussel found himself in, the fate of the Motherland always worried him. He constantly looked for opportunities to personally participate in the revolutionary struggle. Moving away from the political life of the Hawaiians, Roussel goes to Shanghai to organize an armed detachment and free convicts in Siberia. Of course, this naive idea did not find the necessary support among Russian emigrants, and it had to be abandoned.

When the war between Russia and Japan began, Roussel had a new plan: whether to go to the theater of military operations to spread revolutionary propaganda among Russian sailors. And he took advantage of this opportunity.

In Japan Sudzilovsky-Rousselle lived until 1930. All the time he lived abroad, he dreamed of a trip to Russia; he prepared for his departure for a long time and with difficulty. Finally, as an eighty-year-old man, he decided to set off on a long journey. The trip was interrupted by a sudden illness, pneumonia. Death overtook Nikolai Konstantinovich on April 30, 1930 at the station in the foreign Chinese city of Chongqing... The Russian border was already very close...

This man was wanted by the police of several countries. He was cursed by the rulers of many countries, for whom he posed a mortal threat; he was idolized by the mere mortals of these countries, whose lives he devoted his life to making easier.

A talented doctor and professional revolutionary, a tireless traveler and natural scientist, a brilliant publicist and... the President of the Hawaiian Republic!

This is our compatriot Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky - a man who wanted to make the world a better place. The future president of the exotic Pacific islands was born in 1850 in Mogilev, into an impoverished noble family.

In Russia (Nikolai I banned the very word “Belarus”) there was restlessness, peasant and student unrest multiplied. The family, which had 8 children, had a hard time. All this, as well as familiarity with the works of Chernyshevsky and Herzen, shaped his worldview.

After graduating from the Mogilev gymnasium, Nikolai studied at St. Petersburg and then Kiev universities. In the latter he organizes a “commune”. The "Kiev Commune" caused a lot of trouble for the tsarist government. It was perhaps the most powerful populist organization of that time.

People lived and learned revolutionary crafts there, and learned encryption and explosives. The "communards" also took on social projects. For example, in the village of Goryany, Polotsk district, Vitebsk province, a farm-school was organized. But the police were on his heels. I had to master the wisdom of conspiracy.

In the memoirs of contemporaries one can find colorful descriptions of “a person who called himself Nikolaev, dressed in the costume of a German colonist, with a long unshaven beard, in a blue shirt, with a pipe in his teeth and speaking Russian with great skill...” Even those who knew Sudzilovsky well could not identify him in this person. However, when the “commune” was defeated, I had to go into hiding. Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Odessa... Nikolai works as a paramedic in the Kherson province, but when the secret police “figured out” him here too, he moves to London.

“GALLOPPING THROUGH EUROPE” The Belarusian expressed his impressions of England in the phrase: “Of all the big cities in the world, you feel most alone in London.” Foggy Albion also gave him unforgettable meetings: at one of the rallies Sudzilovsky spoke together... with K. Marx and F. Engels, where he met the founders of Marxism. The restless soul of the revolutionary demanded active action, and now Nikolai Konstantinovich was on his way to Geneva, then to Bucharest.

On the trip, he was accompanied by his wife Lyubov Fedorovna, a support and adviser, who, however, increasingly did not approve of the dangerous activities of the “troublemaker.” In Romania, he practices as a surgeon, defends his doctoral dissertation in medicine, on the title page of which N.K. Sudzilovsky’s new “conspiracy” surname, Roussel, first appeared. He meets with the famous Bulgarian revolutionary Hristo Botev and creates a political party. According to Sudzilovsky’s biographer M.I. Iosko, there is a high probability that the populist circles of Russia assigned a special role to Dr. Roussel in the plans to assassinate Alexander II , who in 1878 was with the army in Romania.

But the plan for the regicide changed. “The hunt for Sashka,” as the operation was called, was successfully completed later in Russia... The Romanian authorities invited the suspicious doctor Roussel to go to Turkey and, together with other political emigrants, they put him on a ship. He had no doubt that the Turkish police would hand him over to Russia, and then to Siberia. The exile managed to win over the captain of the ship to his side. Using experience...Garibaldi, the conspirator, dressed in the uniform of a captain, accompanied by sailors, went ashore.

Soon, on the streets of the Bosphorus, one could often see an elegant blond man with a sparse light-brown beard, Mephistopheles, with an invariable pipe in the shape of a black man’s head in his mouth. And then - new travels and adventures: France, Belgium, studies in science and practical medicine, a break with his wife. Having received his brother’s invitation, in 1887 Sudzilovsky left for the USA.

HAWAIIAN ANTI-CYCLONE Very quickly Nikolai Konstantinovich became the most popular doctor in San Francisco. But Dr. Roussel was not delighted with the “free” America. He wrote: “The states represent a state based on extreme individualism. They are the center of the world, and the world and humanity exist for them only insofar as they are necessary for their personal pleasure and satisfaction ...

Relying on the omnipotence of their capital, like a walnut sponge, like a cancerous tumor, they absorb all the vital juices from the environment without mercy." One cannot help but marvel at the insight of the Belarusian! Having received American citizenship, Dr. Roussel did not at all become an exemplary "American" ("and he, the rebellious one, asks for a storm!").

Sudzilovsky initiates a huge scandal, sharply speaking out against local priests mired in debauchery and gluttony. For which, along with Stenka Razin, Grishka Otrepyev, Emelka Pugachev, “Nikolka Sudzilovsky” was anathematized. Tired of America, in 1892 the frantic doctor decides to settle in a secluded place, in Hawaii, among the Kanakas, unspoiled by civilization. In this piece of paradise, which is distinguished by an even tropical climate (the so-called “Hawaiian anticyclone”).

Sudzilovsky spent some time in the role of a planter, growing coffee, and at the same time treating local residents, for which he received from them the nickname Kauka Luchini - “good doctor.” He also treated the family of the famous author of “Treasure Island” R. Stevenson. Other famous people in the world also visited him, for example, Dr. Botkin.

The authority of Kauka Luchini, who taught the population how to survive and manage a household, grew. This was also facilitated by the fact that he, of course, opposed the Americans, who were robbing and humiliating the islanders. Considering that he had rested enough, Sudzilovsky took part in the first parliamentary elections of the Hawaiian Republic and became a senator.

He creates a party of “independents”, whose program provides for independence from the United States, exemption of the poor from taxes, health care reform, regulation of the sale of alcohol, and construction of a conservatory. And soon the “nihilist and materialist” cursed by the church, Nikolai Roussel, becomes... the first president of Hawaii! Washington is in shock... Needless to say, how the activities of the rebellious president alarmed the industrial and financial aces not only in America. Intrigues and conspiracies were woven against him, and in the end he was forced to resign as president and go to China.

EASTERN LANDING In the East, Sudzilovsky takes actions that often border on adventure. After the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, he ransomed Russian prisoners of war from the Japanese and sent them home. He is trying to organize an attack by Honghuz on the Siberian penal servitude in order to free political prisoners.

And what about Dr. Roussel’s plan for the invasion of Russian prisoners from Japan into Russia! A landing force of many thousands was supposed to sweep away the tsarist troops in Manchuria and move in echelons to Moscow and St. Petersburg. He almost managed to convince the Japanese government not only to release the prisoners from the camps, but also to return their weapons and even provide them with ships to cross to the mainland!

But “the devil pulled,” as Sudzilovsky himself put it, to turn to the Socialist-Revolutionaries for help. Their leader, Azef (familiar to our readers from the recent television series “Empire Under Attack”), gave the secret police the composition of the organization, and he also passed on information about Dr. Roussel. Under these conditions, a landing meant the death of thousands of people, and Sudzilovsky abandoned his plan.

In 1906-1907 he worked a lot on articles, books, and organized [ and in Japan, Nagasaki] publishing. He is interested in the writings of the English science fiction writer Herbert Wells with his technocratic ideas. He corresponds with the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. But soon a series of deaths and misfortunes among loved ones plunges Sudzilovsky into the abyss of depression.

He loses faith in himself and contemplates suicide. “Where do the birds fly when night falls?..” he asks in one of his poems from this period. He seeks salvation from painful thoughts in the Philippines, which for almost five years became a refuge for an exile from Belarus. The habit of vigorous activity helps him restore his mental balance.

He creates a private hospital in Manila and publishes articles in newspapers. And soon he moved again closer to Russia, to Nagasaki, then to the Chinese city of Tianjin.

After the revolution in Russia, he increasingly thinks about returning to his homeland. “The time has come when it’s time for me to end my trip around the world by returning home...” he wrote. In preparation for leaving, Sudzilovsky even plans to write something for the Belarusian magazine "Polymya", to which he once promised an article...

These plans were not destined to come true: having contracted pneumonia, on April 30, 1930, Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky-Roussel died, according to contemporaries, still strong and vigorous. According to Chinese custom, his youngest daughter lit the cremation pyre...

1850-1930, populist. One of the organizers of the "Kyiv commune". Since 1875 in exile Participant in the revolutionary movement in the Balkans lived in America from 1887, elected senator of the Hawaiian Islands in 1900 since 1904 in Japan

Roussel-Sudzilovsky Nikolai Konstantinovich (1848-1930) - populist, publicist, natural scientist, emigrant, senator and president of the Senate of the Hawaiian Islands (USA), honorary member of the All-Union Society of Political Prisoners Russian Army "Russian Army" - Russian white newspaper. Official body of the government adm. Kolchak in Siberia. Published in 1918-1919 in Omsk. Published government and military documents

Sudzilovsky N.K.

In the story “Knockout,” the writer O. Sidelnikov continued the story about the life of the popular hero Ilf and Petrov. Ostap Bender, rummaging through his experiences, recalls one of the episodes of his zigzag life:

“...I, maddened by failures, rushed to the West. Here, too, relatively honest methods of withdrawing money were not mentioned. I moved to the crystal dream of my childhood, Rio de Janeiro. A charming city, almost all of the residents, without exception, wear white pants. However, the crystal dream was shattered, I suffered greatly under the yoke of capitalism... In short, I left Guanabara Bay and found myself in a tiny banana republic. I'm lucky here. Three military men with powerful mustaches and bulging pockets, from which the necks of bottles of corn vodka peeked out, turned to me for help, and I, using the fruit campaign, quickly organized their next revolution. The military drank vodka and organized a military junta, and I found myself in the presidential chair. For seven hours and fifteen minutes I enjoyed power: I could declare war and make peace, invent laws, execute and pardon, erect monuments and destroy them. Another revolution has deprived me of everything...”

So, a Russian citizen is the president of a “tiny banana republic.” What is this, the author’s invention or did a similar fact take place?

--------------------

When in the spring of 1874 Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky, following the example of many revolutionary-minded young people, came to the Saratov province to “go among the people,” a group of ideologists of revolutionary populism led by Porfiry Ivanovich Voinaralsky had already settled in this noisy, businesslike Volga city. Twenty-four-year-old Sudzilovsky traveled from St. Petersburg to the Volga with some excitement. There, nearby Novouzensk, on a small estate of relatives, he spent his childhood years.

Konstantin Sudzilovsky was in the past a large Mogilev landowner, the owner of the rich family estate of Sudzily. But fate is changeable, and now he is already in the Volga region with the relatives who sheltered him. The impoverished landowner suffered from his humiliated position. He strove to give his children a decent education, so that they would again, like their father in years past, become significant, independent people and wealthy landowners. But the four sons and daughter of Konstantin Sudzilovsky chose a different path in life. Nikolai, for example, while still a student at the Faculty of Medicine at Kyiv University, joined the group of the rebel populist Vladimir Karpovich Debagoriy-Mokrievich. He secretly, at night, read “sedition”, admiring the intelligence and courage of the authors of the pamphlets, he warily came to safe houses to participate in student gatherings, becoming increasingly drawn into disputes about democracy and social problems of the Russian Empire. The book left the greatest impression from what I read. Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky “What to do?”, which at that time became the “bible” of fighters for the people’s cause. Since then, Nikolai Sudzilovsky considered Chernyshevsky his teacher in life and struggle. Later, Nikolai Konstantinovich gave one of his articles in Romanian the title “Che de fakul?” - "What to do?".

Without finishing his fifth year at university, Sudzilovsky arrived on the Volga to conduct anti-government propaganda among workers and peasants. Nikolai Konstantinovich got a job as an office worker at a railway stationPokrovsk. He did his work diligently, conscientiously, without ostentatious fuss. The station manager had no idea that a young, intelligent-looking clerk under a uniform railway jacket was bringing books, brochures, and newspapers prohibited by tsarist censorship to the station and reading them to the railway workers and peasants of the Pokrovskaya settlement in some empty freight car driven into a dead end. This is how we read the works of Karl Marx “The Civil War in France” and the first volume of “Capital”, recently published in Russian translation.

Most of all, Nikolai Sudzilovsky loved Sunday meetings with workers and artisans of the settlement. These gatherings were held on the nearby Volga islands. Here, in the wide open space of the river, one could speak and argue in a loud voice about the most intimate things, without fear of the long ear of a stalker. Sudzilovsky told the workers about the Decembrist uprising, about the circles of Herzen and Petrashevsky, about the works of the Saratov writer Chernyshevsky.

Living in Pokrovskaya Sloboda, Nikolai Sudzilovsky maintained constant contact with his three brothers and sister, who also actively participated in the populist movement. One day, having responded to the invitation of his brother Sergei, Nikolai Konstantinovich left the settlement and moved to the city of Nikolaevsk (now the cityPugachevSaratov region). Here, in search of work, Nikolai Sudzilovsky came to the local hospital. Doctor Kadyan, meticulously examining the documents of the person who came to study at the Faculty of Medicine, accepted him for the position of paramedic. Later, Nikolai Konstantinovich learned that Alexander Alexandrovich Kadyan, while still a student at the St. Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, took part in the revolutionary unrest of youth and was arrested. In 1873, after graduating from the academy, Kadyan went as a zemstvo doctor to Nikolaevsky district, where he helped the populists.

Paramedic Sudzilovsky, in addition to caring for the sick, had other concerns. In the summer of 1874, his comrades involved him in an action in the Nikolaev prison. Placed on the recommendation of Kadyan in the prison department of the hospital, Nikolai Konstantinovich was supposed to win over several sick prisoners to the side of the populists, with their help to rebel the rest of the prisoners and then open the doors of the prison. The beginning of the plan was carried out successfully and we began to complete it. On June 14, one of the sick prisoners invited the prison guards for a glass of tea. Such tea drinking had happened before, so it did not arouse any suspicion. The tea they drank did not cheer up the guards; on the contrary, they were strongly drawn to sleep. The powder poured into glasses by paramedic Sudzilovsky did its job. The prisoners released from their cells walked past the sleeping guards to the prison gates. Freedom was close, but at that time one of the soldiers woke up, raised the alarm, and the fugitives were detained.

The district police did not touch any of the underground fighters: either there was not enough evidence, or the local police officer was afraid of another reprisal against himself. Last winter he was already taught a lesson by Porfiry Voinaralsky. He waylaid the bailiff in the steppe, disarmed him and lashed him with a whip.

In June 1874, Sergei Sudzilovsky invited his brother Nikolai to go to Samara, wanting to introduce him to the Ilyin family, whose daughter, Alexandra Alexandrovna, he was going to marry. At this time, a wave of destruction swept across the Volga region, the center of revolutionary populism in Russia. Dozens of populists were arrested and illegal literature was confiscated. Voinaralsky's Saratov group and the Samara center suffered especially. Rumors of arrests immediately reached the revolutionary-minded inhabitants of the Ilyins’ house. Moreover, it became known that the police were also looking for the Sudzilovskys. Not wanting to take pointless risks, Nikolai Konstantinovich crossed to Volsk, from there by steamship to Nizhny Novgorod. Wherever Sudzilovsky went, everywhere he felt the breath of the catching up policemen behind him. This circumstance forced the underground worker to move abroad illegally.

London, a short trip to America, then Geneva, Sofia, Bucharest... In Romania, Nikolai Konstantinovich again sat down to the medical textbooks he had once left in Kyiv in order to finally complete his interrupted education. When submitting an application to a local university to take exams to become a doctor, Sudzilovsky was forced to hide the fact that his studies at Kiev University were interrupted due to his arrest. The joy of receiving his doctor of medicine certificate was overshadowed by the news that the Russian police were again on his trail. Sudzilovsky changes his last name, now he is called Doctor Roussel.

In the Romanian city of Iasi, where Roussel and his family moved in 1879, he has a large medical practice, but, as secret reports from the Russian gendarme department note, “he devotes a small part of his income to himself and his family, but uses the rest to support the party.” Fleeing from the pursuit of agents of the Third Section, Nikolai Konstantinovich ends up in Turkey, then in France. However, the spies relentlessly follow him. Then Sudzilovsky-Rousselle leaves overseas, to North America. Having settled in San Francisco, thanks to his excellent knowledge of medicine and conscientious attitude to business, he soon gained authority among the local population. Elected vice-president of the Greek-Slavic charitable society, Roussel-Sudzilovsky waged a long and dangerous struggle against the Bishop of the Aleutian and Alaskan Vladimir, who was mired in dark, far from holy affairs, which nevertheless brought a substantial income.

Nikolai Konstantinovich spent several months collecting documents exposing the rogue bishop, and then, under his chairmanship, a meeting of parishioners took place, sending the Russian Tsar a demand to recall the bishop, “mirrored in vices.” Having learned about this, Bishop Vladimir sent a formidable message to Doctor Roussel:

“...you hold materialistic beliefs: you don’t need church, holy confession and communion, and you have put on the guise of a Christian for the better opportunity to send the bishop to a monastery; you are, in principle, an enemy of God. To avoid temptation, I forbid you entry into the bishop’s house and church.”

In San Francisco, Nikolai Konstantinovich does not feel safe. The fear of arrest constantly worries him. Now he was afraid not only of the bloodhounds of the Russian Empire, but also of American justice, which he dared to criticize. I had to leave my habitable place once again.

In 1892, Nikolai Roussel got a job as a ship's doctor on a ship sailing to the Hawaiian (Sandwich) Islands. The new land struck Nikolai Konstantinovich with its appearance (there were forty volcanic peaks on eleven small islands), its diverse tropical vegetation, and the diversity of its sixty thousand population. “On the globe,” Sudzilovsky-Roussel wrote several years later in his essays published under a pseudonym in the Russian magazine “Books of the Week,” “it is unlikely that there will be another such fertile corner as the Hawaiian Islands...”

No more than half of all residents lived there; the remaining fifty percent were North Americans, British, French, Germans, but there were especially many Japanese and Chinese. It was they, together with the Hawaiians, who represented the main labor force on sugar plantations, collecting bananas and pumpkins, and fishing. Dozens of families resettled from Russia settled on Sahu Island. The Roussel family also joined them. Then, seeking solitude, Nikolai Konstantinovich moved to the island of Hawaii. Near one of the extinct volcanoes, he rented a plot of one hundred and sixty acres, built a house and started growing coffee. Then bananas, pineapples, lemons, and oranges appeared on his plantations.

Doctor Roussel had a lot of work to do. Hard, long hours of work on plantations with meager food led workers to extreme exhaustion and to diseases for which the doctor had too few medicines. Workers often died. Their place was taken by new half-starved and sick people.

The Americans' blatant exploitation of the indigenous population outraged Dr. Roussel. He, as before in Russia, began to organize among the Kanaka natives, as the Hawaiians were also called, a kind of revolutionary circles, where he explained to the Kanakas the lawlessness being committed against them. From memory, in his own words, Nikolai Konstantinovich retold entire chapters from the books of Karl Marx and articles by Russian populist revolutionaries.

Years passed. Kuaka-Lukini (Russian Doctor), as the Kanaks called Roussel-Sudzilovsky, became the most popular person on the islands. He not only restored the health of the sick, but also gave a lot of business advice to the natives, fairly dealt with their disputes and feuds, and was an honorary judge at numerous tournaments in national wrestling, fist fighting, running and swimming. Kuaka Lukini, as a landmark of the island, is visited by foreign travelers, the famous Russian doctor Sergei Sergeevich Botkin comes, the stepson of the famous novelist Stevenson, Lloyd Osborne, also a famous writer, bought a house and settled nearby.

In 1892, the Americans decided to form a republic in the Hawaiian Islands instead of a kingdom in the best traditions of their democracy. The election campaign, as usual, saw a sharp struggle between two American parties - the Republican and the Democratic. But there was a man, it was Dr. Roussel, who stood at the head of the newly organized third national party, convincing local residents to reject the dubious promises of the American Republicans and Democrats. The new association called itself the “party of independents.” The leader of the “independents”, Doctor Roussel, who went through the school of propaganda work in Russia, skillfully conducted propaganda among the Kanaks and enjoyed their endless trust. Therefore, when state elections were held in the Hawaiian Islands a year later, Kuaka-Lukini was elected first as a senator, then as president of the first republican government of the Hawaiian Islands. Together with the president, the republic was led by three other ministers and fourteen members of the State Council.

The islanders were not deceived in choosing their president. The Russian doctor carried out several broad progressive reforms, significantly easing the plight of the Kanaks. At the same time, the rights of the colonialists were reduced, which caused the indignation of the Americans, British and French. The bills of the Roussel government were directed against the drinking of the natives, unsanitary conditions, and against the predatory tax system. The plans of the first president were to abolish the death penalty, introduce free public education, and plan to open a conservatory.

However, Roussel-Sudzilovsky understood that he would not be able to resist such a major power as America for long. It was difficult for him not only to protect the republic, but also to protect himself personally. The Hawaiian state did not have its own army; only a militia detachment led by a colonel maintained order on the islands. Yet Dr. Roussel remained president until 1902. During this time, he managed to do a lot of good for the native population.

While abroad, Roussel-Sudzilovsky closely followed the political life of Russia. Of course, the foreign press could not give a reliable idea of ​​the massive popular uprisings in his homeland, the struggle of political parties, arrests and executions. Some gaps in this regard were covered by letters from former party comrades, from acquaintances and relatives from Nikolaevsk and Samara, with whom Nikolai Konstantinovich and sister Evgenia never broke off relations. Dr. Roussel maintained a constant correspondence, with short breaks, with his longtime comrade in Nikolaevsk, doctor Kadyan. Alexander Alexandrovich spent the past years in the underground struggle, was tried in the well-known trial of 193, after serving his exile, he settled in Samara and from 1879 for eight years he was the attending physician of the Ulyanov family.

Sister Evgenia Konstantinovna, Volynskaya by her husband, now lived here on the Hawaiian Islands. She, like her brothers, was persecuted by the Russian police for anti-government activities. Evgenia Konstantinovna, earlier than other members of Debagoriya-Mokrievich’s circle, took up practical work and for some time traded in a shop, while at the same time conducting revolutionary propaganda among the peasants. Forced into hiding, she left Russia and found protection with her brother-president.

No matter what country Nikolai Roussel found himself in, the fate of his long-suffering Motherland always worried him. He constantly looked for opportunities to personally participate in the revolutionary struggle. Moving away from the political life of Hawaii, Roussel goes to Shanghai to organize an armed detachment and free political prisoners in Siberia. Of course, this naive idea did not find the necessary support among Russian emigrants, and it had to be abandoned.

During these weeks, the war between Russia and Japan began, and Roussel came up with a new plan. Shouldn't he go to the theater of military operations to spread revolutionary propaganda among Russian soldiers and sailors? On May 5, 1905, an announcement appeared in the capital's Hawaiian newspaper: “Due to the need for an early departure, the estate is being sold cheaply. A separate cottage with two rooms with a veranda in the Russian style.” Having finished his business in Hawaii, Roussel-Sudzilovsky moved to the Japanese city of Kobe, where a large number of Russian prisoners of war had gathered after the Battle of Tsushima. One of them was the future famous writer Alexei Silych Novikov-Priboi, who took part in the exceptionally dramatic battle on the island of Tsushima as a sailor on the battleship “Eagle”.

“When many of our prisoners had accumulated there,” Novikov-Priboi recalled, “Doctor Roussel, the President of the Hawaiian Islands, and in the past a long-time Russian political emigrant, arrived in Japan. He began publishing the magazine “Japan and Russia” for the prisoners, on the pages of which I also sometimes printed small notes. For tactical reasons, the magazine was very moderate, but then gradually became more and more revolutionary.”

When talking about Roussel's journal, Alexey Silych made an inaccuracy. “Japan and Russia” began to appear even before Roussel’s arrival in Japan. The creator of the magazine and the initiator of revolutionary education among prisoners was a longtime friend of Russia and a supporter of its liberation movement, the American journalist George Kennan, who was in Japan as a correspondent for the Washington magazine. Kennan began publishing the propaganda magazine Japan and Russia at the very beginning of the war. When the number of Russian prisoners in Japan increased significantly, Nikolai Konstantinovich Roussel-Sudzilovsky, sent by the American “Society of Friends of Russian Freedom,” came to help Kennan. Starting from the ninth issue, the magazine “Japan and Russia” began to regularly publish articles by Roussel, which gave a special revolutionary edge to the publication. In addition to writing harsh articles denouncing the Russian autocracy, Dr. Roussel began distributing illegal literature among prisoners. One of his intermediaries in this matter was the prisoner Novikov-Priboy.

“In Kumamota, this literature was received in my name,” the writer recalled. “People from all the barracks came to me and took brochures and newspapers. The ground units read them with caution, still afraid of future punishment, the sailors were bolder. The penetration of revolutionary ideas into the general military masses alarmed some officers living in another Kumamot camp. They began to spread various rumors among the captive lower ranks, saying: everyone who reads obscene newspapers and books has been rewritten: upon their return to Russia they will be hanged.”

But the threats had little effect. Huge transports of illegal literature sent by various revolutionary committees of Russia, through Doctor Roussel, quickly spread among prisoners of war and did their job. The mass of soldiers turned out to be surprisingly receptive to propaganda: political circles formed among them, and they spread the adopted social revolutionary views to hundreds of different villages, where they later poured after the conclusion of peace with Japan.

“An old man as white as a harrier, kind-hearted and ardent with energy, like not every young man,” - this is how Nikolai Konstantinovich seemed to the soldiers and sailors. But the Russian officers stationed in Japan considered him daring and extremely dangerous for the Russian throne. Complaints poured into the US capital, and in response to them, Foreign Minister Ruth demanded that Roussel stop “evil activities,” to which he stated: “Not being in government service, I have the right to freedom of action in a foreign country.”

Meanwhile, Roussel was already hatching a new bold plan for a military campaign against the Russian Empire. He prepared forty thousand revolutionary-minded prisoners in Japan to move to Siberia in order to, having captured the junction stations of the Trans-Siberian Railway, move to Moscow. Along the way, he intended to replenish the ranks of his army with soldiers from the Far Eastern divisions and proletarian detachments. Seeking support for his plan in the depths of Russia, Nikolai Konstantinovich turned for help to the Central Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, among whom were many of his former comrades in the populist movement. Roussel's plan became known to the Socialist Revolutionary Azef, an agent of the tsarist secret police, and through him to the government. After this, starting an uprising meant leading people to certain death.

When Russian prisoners left Japan in small groups and without weapons, Roussel-Sudzilovsky stopped publishing his magazine. He now lived in Nagasaki, but thoughts of Russia still haunted him. He subscribed to Russian newspapers and maintained relationships with many of his compatriots by correspondence. He offered Leo Tolstoy assistance in relocating those persecuted for their religious beliefs to Hawaii; he negotiated with Korolenko about cooperation in the magazine “Russian Wealth”; Maxim Gorky encouraged him to participate in the work of the Russian press.

Roussel did not have an idle life. Through the “Ussuriyskaya Gazeta” he introduced the people of Russia to the life and everyday life of the Japanese and Filipinos, wrote scientific and philosophical articles, and in the Philippines opened a hospital for the natives, then a library.

The news of the October Revolution in Russia found Roussel in Japan. Joy and bitterness filled his soul. Joy for what has happened and bitterness from the knowledge that he is far from the raging Motherland. That year, Nikolai Konstantinovich wrote a letter to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, in which he expressed his admiration for the victory of the Russian proletariat. In 1918, his relatives on the Volga received a similar letter from him:

“You made the greatest revolution in October. If you are not crushed by the opponents of the revolution, then you will create an unprecedented society and will build communism... How happy you are, how I would like to be with you and build this new society.”

Roussel is sincere in this desire. And brother Sergei from Samara urges him: “Life in the new Russia has become very interesting, a lot of useful things can be done for the people.” But Nikolai Konstantinovich is not sure whether he will be accepted in his homeland, which he left many years ago. Indeed, in February 1917, the Provisional Government made it clear that it did not need it. But in Russia they remember him. The Society of Former Political Prisoners petitions the Council of People's Commissars for permission for Roussel to return from emigration. “You have been assigned a personal pension, as a veteran of the revolution, 100 gold rubles,” write members of the society.

And one more reason kept Nikolai Konstantinovich from immediately returning to Russia. In 1910, after the death of his wife, in order to brighten up the loneliness of old age, he took in two Japanese orphan boys. “I’ve gotten so used to them that I can’t leave them to their fate,” he wrote to Alexander Kadyan.

Nikolai Konstantinovich Sudzilovsky-Rousselle prepared for a long time and difficultly to return to his homeland. Finally, in 1930, as an eighty-year-old man, he decided to go on a long journey, informing his Samara relatives about it. The trip was interrupted by a sudden illness - pneumonia. Death overtook him on April 30 at a train station in the foreign Chinese city of Chongqing. The Russian border was already very close...

Materials used: Mishin G.A. Events and destinies are intertwined. - Saratov: Volga Book Publishing House, 1990.