Новый исторический вестник, 2017, № 2 (52)

THE NEW HISTORICAL BULLETIN

№ 2(52)

2017

Москва 2017

РОССИЙСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ
ГУМАНИТАРНЫЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

ИСТОРИКО-АРХИВНЫЙ ИНСТИТУТ

Журнал основан в 2000 г.

ОСНОВАТЕЛИ И ГЛАВНЫЕ РЕДАКТОРЫ

Сергей Сергеевич Ипполитов
Сергей Владимирович Карпенко

РЕДАКЦИОННАЯ КОЛЛЕГИЯ

О.Г. Буховец, В. Голдман, Н.Т. Ерегина, В.П. Зиновьев, 
В.Г. Корнелюк, А.В. Костров, Н.Г. Кулинич, А.М. Пашков, 
А.А. Симонов, В.Л. Успенский, Д. Фильцер, В.Ж. Цветков, Л. Чех

 
Ответственный секретарь М.Ю. Черниченко
Переводчики О.Н. Судакова, К.Дж. Сторэлла
Обложка А. Надточенко

Выходит 4 раза в год

Адрес редакции: 
121433, Москва, Б. Филевская, 69-2-67
Эл. почта: nivestnik@yandex.ru
Сайт: www.nivestnik.ru

Подписной индекс по каталогу «Урал-Пресс»: ВН002537

© Новый исторический вѣстникъ, 2017 
© Редакция «Нового исторического вестника» 
ООО «Смелый дизайн», 2017 
© Издательство Ипполитова, 2017

RUSSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY
FOR THE HUMANITIES

INSTITUTE FOR HISTORY AND ARCHIVES

The Journal is founded in 2000

FOUNDERS AND EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Sergey S. Ippolitov
Sergey V. Karpenko

EDITORIAL BOARD

O. Bukhovets, L. Čech, N. Eregina, D. Filtzer, W. Goldman,
V. Karnialiuk, A. Kostrov, N. Kulinich, A. Pashkov,
A. Simonov, V. Tsvetkov, V. Uspensky, V. Zinoviev

Executive Secretary M. Chernichenko
Translators O. Sudakova, C.J. Storella
Cover Designer А. Nadtochenko

Quarterly journal

Address: 
69-2-67, Bolshaya Filevskaya St., Moscow, Russia, 121433 

«Ural-Press» Catalogue Subscription Index: ВН002537

© Novyy Istoricheskiy Vestnik, 2017
© Novyy Istoricheskiy Vestnik Editorial Staff LLC 
“Smelyi Dizayn”, 2017 
© Ippolitov Publishing House, 2017

С О Д Е Р Ж А Н И Е

Российская государственность

Таймасова Л.Ю. Семейные тайны первых Романовых: «Не приличные
к истории документы»........................................................................6

Морозан В.В. Дворянский род Крупенских в истории Бессарабии..........19

Попова О.Д., Попова А.Д. Бунтующая семинария: Протестное движение
в духовых учебных заведениях (вторая половина 
XIX – начало XX веков)....................................................................39

Грибовский М.В. Публичные лекции университетских профессоров как
явление городской жизни в России на рубеже XIX – XX веков...57  

Симонов А.А. Комплектование военно-учебных заведений Поволжья и 
Урала красными курсантами во время Гражданской войны ........72

Гусева Ю.Н. Мрачное эхо «Дела ЦДУМ»: «Цепь Корана» и репрессии
против мусульманской элиты в СССР (1940 год)...........................85

Россия и мир

Петров А.Ю. Уступка Аляски: Дискуссионные вопросы российскоамериканской сделки 150-летней давности..................................103

Антибольшевистская Россия

Антошин А.В. Русская консервативная эмиграция в США в условиях
Корейской войны..............................................................................121

События и судьбы

Афанасьев В.Г., Волошинова И.В. Горный институт и его студент
Петр Врангель.................................................................................140

C O N T E N T S

Russian Statehood

Taimasova L. Family Secrets of the First Romanovs: “Documents that are
Indecent for History”............................................................................6 

Morozan V. The Noble Family of Krupenskiy in Bessarabian History............19 

Popova O., Popova A. The Rebellious Seminary: The Protest Movemen
in Spiritual Educational Institutions (second half of the 19th – 
beginning of the 20th Centuries).........................................................39

Gribovskiy M. The Public Lectures of University Professors as a Phenomenon
of Urban Life in Russia at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries...57

Simonov A. The Recruitment of Red Cadets to Military Training Institutions
in the Volga and Urals Regions during the Civil War..........................72

Guseva Yu. The Gloomy Echo of the “TsDUM Affair”: “The Chain of the
Quran” and the Repressions against the Muslim Elite in the USSR 
(1940)..................................................................................................85

Russia and the World

Petrov A. The Cession of Alaska: Discussion Points Regarding the 150
Year-Old Russian-American Agreement...........................................103

Anti-Bolshevik Russia

Antoshin A. The Russian Conservative Emigration in the USA under the 
Conditions Created by the Korean War.............................................121

Landmarks in Human History

Afanasev V., Voloshinova I. The Mining Institute and its Student Peter 
Wrangel..............................................................................................140

РОССИЙСКАЯ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОСТЬ 
Russian Statehood

L. Taimasova

FAMILY SECRETS OF THE FIRST ROMANOVS: 
“DOCUMENTS THAT ARE INDECENT FOR HISTORY”

Л.Ю. Таймасова

Семейные тайны первых Романовых: 
«Не приличные к истории документы»

On February 28, 1720, Peter I (1682 – 1725) signed a decree entitled 
“The General Regulations of State Colleges.” A special chapter of that 
document took up the question of archives.1 The decree proposed the 
formation of two main archives under the auspices of the College of Foreign Affairs – one to be located in St. Petersburg, the other in Moscow. 
The first archive would preserve all documents of the Imperial government except those pertaining to finance; the second would serve as the 
repository for papers transferred from the Posolsky prikaz (Foreign Office, literally the Office of Embassies, which had lost operational significance as a result of Peter’s reorganization of government administration) 
as well as documents from the offices of former tsars. In the process of 
re-archiving the archives, the question about the fate of papers from the 
personal, or “komnatnaya,” library of deceased tsars arose. Undoubtedly, 
secret, potentially embarrassing, documents were slated for destruction. 
However, as emerged later, the persons authorized to burn the compromising papers hid them instead. The documents were then kept in 
several chests. Two of the chests, containing the most important documents, were deposited with the Emperor’s wife, the future Catherine I. 
The others were hidden in a secret place in Moscow. The disappearance 
of the compromising papers was first discovered shortly after the Empress’s death.

Empress Catherine I died on May 6, 1727.2 The contents of the Empress’s testament were revealed after her funeral.3 Among its many provisions, her will included instructions regarding the order of succession 
to the throne (the throne was transferred to Peter Alekseevich, Peter I’s 
grandson,), and the division of money and movable property between her 
daughters Anna and Elizabeth.4
Coldly ignoring the protocols of official mourning, two weeks af

ter the Empress’s death Princess Anna’s husband, Duke Karl Friedrich 
of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, asked the cabinet ministers to speed up 
the division of the late Empress’s movable property as he and his wife 
intended to leave Russia soon for Holstein. Angered by the Duke’s impatient intervention in his wife’s hereditary affairs, the ministers moved 
instead to expel the Duke and the Princess from Russia posthaste.5
The couple’s departure was set for July 25, 1727. 6 Now, Anna Petrovna lamented that due to the delay in distributing her legacy, she would be 
unable to take any mementos of her mother with her. Her Highness asked 
that she at least be provided an inventory of the valuables, adding that 
two other chests existed that had not been included in the general register. The government took her statement as a reproach, an implication that 
they were attempting to conceal a portion of the late Empress’s legacy, 
when in fact she only wanted the two chests that her mother had handed 
over to her for storage included in the inventory. Incorrectly interpreting 
the words of Anna Petrovna, the ministers responded that Emperor Peter 
II and his sister Elizabeth Petrovna did not want for anything and that if 
the two chests turned up they would be taken into account during the final 
distribution.7 In the end, Anna Petrovna did not receive the portion her 
mother had stipulated in her will, but did manage to take the two chests 
in question with her to Kiel along with other of her personal belongings. 
Anna Petrovna died in Kiel on May 4, 1728, leaving her husband to 
raise their infant son.8 With her passing the Duke not only lost his wife, 
but the considerable subsidies that the Russian government had been providing the couple as well. Within a year, though, the widower himself 
came into his inheritance. The two chests that had belonged to Catherine 
I made up the most valuable portion of his wife’s property. As it turned 
out, they contained documents relating to Russian history. So scandalous, 
in fact, were the papers contents that the Duke immediately understood 
that they could be used to extort payment from the Russian government 
in exchange for his silence. In August 1729, the Duke sent his representative to St. Petersburg with a demand for 100,000 rubles. The court acceded to the blackmail, but warned the Duke that further payments would 
not be forthcoming. In the event, this turned out to be an idle threat. Karl 
Friedrich continued to wrest large sums from the Russian treasury, enjoying his ill-gotten compensation until 1733.9
As the Duke’s appetites grew, the Russian government found his endless demands for money unbearable. Then, with the help of a provocation 
(the so-called “Milasevich Affair”), the government managed to establish 
Karl-Friedrich’s culpability in a conspiracy to overthrow Empress Anna 
Ivanovna10 in favor of his young son Karl Peter Ulrich. A representative 
from Moscow reminded the Duke that by the terms of his marriage contract he had given up “all claims to the Russian throne.”11 In addition, he 
was accused of treating with Stanislaw Leszczynski, a candidate for the 
vacant Polish throne.12 The Duke’s actions “repaired an injustice” since 
Russia backed a different candidate. In retaliation, Moscow threatened 

war.  The Duke of Holstein was forced to surrender the two chests from 
his deceased wife’s estate to the special envoy.13 
The chests ultimately found their way into the hands of Chancellor 
Gavriil Golovkin, who, no doubt, found their contents very useful for his 
own purposes. He made copies of the documents and placed them under 
his seal in a special locker that held the most important government documents.
Whatever threat the scandalous papers carried seemed to have been 
suppressed, but Empress Anna Ivanovna and her ministers’ respite 
proved short lived. Troubles began anew following Golovkin’s death on 
July 24, 1734 when the Cabinet of Ministers came into possession of the 
deceased chancellor’s personal seal and keys to the special locker. The 
papers from the locker were reviewed in the presence of the Empress’s 
favorite, Ernst Johann Biron14 as well as two other ministers. The copies 
that they found proved so shocking that the ministers felt compelled to 
check them against originals dating from the time of Ivan the Terrible and 
Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov housed in the College of Foreign Affairs 
archive in Moscow. This they did without submitting an official government request. 
The ministers undertook a careful search for old documents in the 
Moscow archive via Biron’s surrogate, Baron Johann Albrecht von Korf, 
who had been made director of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences 
thanks to Biron’s patronage.15 In February 1735, von Korf submitted an 
inquiry to the archive. Claiming it had become necessary to re-issue the 
“Sobornoye Ulozheniye” (a legal code promulgated in 1649) with an 
accompanying biography of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich16, he insisted that 
relevant documents be sent to the Academy of Sciences. In addition, the 
Baron ordered that handwritten letters, drawings, and the travel journals 
of the tsar’s predecessors – Ivan the Terrible17 and Mikhail Fedorovich18 
– be found and delivered. The Moscow archive staff spent four months 
searching for the requested documents. They succeeded in locating papers from the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich and a small sample from that 
of Mikhail Fedorovich. However, letters or drawings from the time of 
Ivan the Terrible and documents relating to Mikhail Fedorovich were not 
found. The archivists duly reported this to von Korf.19
Certain now that the originals of the scandalous documents were not 
in the Moscow archive, the ministers suspected mischief. The important 
papers must have been stolen during the reorganization of the archives 
in 1720–1721. To unravel the mystery, they sought professional help and 
enlisted the offices of the Secret Chancellery (Taynaya kantselyariya), an 
organization that engaged in political investigation.20
Traces of the missing documents pointed to an old Moscow printing 
house.  Secret Chancery investigators dug up a four-year-old case involving the former head of that press, one Alexei Barsov, who was currently 
serving a prison sentence for possessing banned literature. On May 22, 
1736, he was taken to the cellars of the Secret Chancery. There, under in

terrogation in the new case, he died, unable to withstand the torture.21 But 
not, evidently, before his tormentors got the results they sought. Barsov 
revealed where the lost documents were hidden.
The documents from Barsov’s cache were delivered to the Cabinet 
within a week. Von Korf immediately learned of this. On June 1, 1736, 
he sent a “humble petition” to the Cabinet of Ministers for the transfer to 
the Academy of Sciences of documents taken from the Moscow printing 
house.22 
The ministers deliberated for about a month. Then, acting on von 
Korf’s petition, they issued a resolution: the letters and other documents 
taken from the printing house should be studied and recorded. Archive 
staff should select those documents deemed decent for history and send 
them to the Academy of Sciences. Documents considered “not decent for 
history and subject to secrecy” should be sent to the Cabinet.23
The ministerial order was not fully implemented. Manuscripts “in 
scrolls, bundles, and books,” recognized as “decent for history” were 
never deposited in the Academy of Sciences. The “Sobornoye Ulozheniye” was published in 1737 without a biography of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.24 The “decent documents” were kept in the archives of the St. Petersburg departments of the Governmental Senate for almost a hundred 
years, and after 1834 were transferred to the State Archive of Foreign Affairs.25 Among these papers were, in the main, documents from the time 
of Alexei Mikhailovich, and a small number of papers from the period of 
Mikhail Fedorovich. No documents related to the reign of Ivan the Terrible were mentioned.  These manuscripts, apparently, were considered 
“indecent.” 
Documents recognized as “indecent for history and subject to secrecy” were safely hidden away in a special locker under the seals of the first 
three Cabinet ministers. Baron von Korf, who had displayed unnecessary 
zeal in secret matters of national importance, fell into disgrace. In the 
autumn of 1736, he left St. Petersburg suddenly and went into hiding for 
three months in Courland because, it was said, of an unhappy love. Upon 
his return to St. Petersburg, he was informed that he had lost favor with 
the court.26
Five years later, however, the ministers again enlisted von Korf to 
search for scandalous artifacts related to the reign of Ivan the Terrible 
– this time abroad. In March 1740, the Baron was removed as director 
of the Academy of Sciences and appointed extraordinary envoy to Denmark. En route to his destination, von Korf acquired a portrait of Ivan the 
Terrible’s niece, Maria Vladimirovna Staritskaya, the Queen of Livonia. 
The identity of the portrait’s subject was certified by a beautiful inscription in Danish in the upper left corner of the canvas which read: “Maria 
[wife of] Prince Magnus of Denmark Direct Descendent of Grand Duke 
Ivan Basilovitch The Elder.”27  The portrait’s notable “indecency” lay 
in the substantial Catholic cross of crystal hanging on a gold chain that 
rested on her breast even though she was Orthodox. 

As it turned out, the portrait proved to be a crude forgery from the first 
half of the 18th century. According to contemporary art historians,28 the 
canvas does not depict the niece of the Russian Tsar, but Maria Vassilyevna Lupu, the second wife of the Lithuanian prince Janusz Radziwill.29 
Why a portrait of Maria Lupu shows her wearing a Catholic cross also 
remains a mystery since she, too, was Orthodox.
Realizing he had purchased a forgery, von Korf created a scandal. He 
accused a Hamburg shopkeeper deceit.30 Later, the Baron handed the infamous portrait over to the Danish diplomat and collector of antiquities, 
Terkel Klevenfeld. Von Korf never again returned to Russia opting to 
stay in Denmark for good. No doubt, he feared returning to court after the 
portrait fiasco. While living in Denmark, the Baron expended his wealth 
acquiring old books for his library.31
While von Korf painstakingly examined women’s portraits in Hamburg antique shops, in St. Petersburg the hunt for the “indecent” documents began anew.  The papers had disappeared from the special locker. 
The third Cabinet Minister, Artemy Petrovich Volynsky32, who had just 
assumed his post, fell under suspicion.  At the time he was engaged in 
drafting of the “General Project,” a lengthy document “on the improvement of internal state affairs.”  A review of Russian history from “St. 
Vladimir to the accession to the throne of Mikhail Fedorovich and down 
to the present day” made up a separate chapter of the “Project.” This 
covered the period from the 10th century to the accession of the first Romanov tsar in 1613 and then continued to the middle of the 18th century. 
In his work on the historical section of the “Project,” Volynsky evinced a 
deep interest in the past, especially the circumstances leading to Mikhail 
Romanov’s coronation.
In early 1740, courtiers and diplomats noticed a change in Volynsky’s 
attitude toward Biron. The minister freely criticized the Empress’s favorite, and within his circle of close friends he made impertinent comments 
and exposed certain “false deeds” involving Empress Anna Ivanovna, 
herself, and the “most illustrious family line.”33 This raised suspicions 
that Volynsky had become acquainted with the “indecent documents,” 
and an audit showed that the papers had, indeed, disappeared. 
Volynsky was arrested on April 15, 1740 on a standard charge of bribery.  Three days later, however, his case was transferred to the Secret 
Chancery. New, more serious, charges were now brought against him 
including treason and preparing an armed coup in order to seize the Russian throne. 
The investigation lasted two months and ended the day Volynsky 
underwent torture. On June 7, the Empress ordered “investigate no further, draw up a detailed account, and make a report from what’s been 
uncovered.”34 Obviously, further inquiry had become unnecessary. With 
the aid of torture, the investigators exposed everything the political trial 
had intended. Volynsky gave up the cache of documents stolen from the 
Cabinet of Ministers.

Two weeks later the trial occurred. Volynsky received the death sentence, which was carried out on June 27 in grisly fashion: his tongue cut 
out, head and right arm chopped off. Thus, the Empress impressed on her 
subjects the price to be paid for thinking, divulging, or writing “impertinent words” about those of the most illustrious family line. Compromising documents, most likely, were destroyed. 
On assuming power, Anna Leopoldovna as regent, and then Empress 
Elizabeth Petrovna, took actions to correct the injustice meted out in the 
case and the severity of the punishment. Catherine II repeatedly referred 
to the materials of the investigation, and warned her descendants to beware of such an unlawful example of judicial practice.35 All tried to assuage the fears instilled in their subjects by the cruel execution of the 
courtier concerned with the reorganization of the Russian state. In addition, they found it necessary to make clear that Volynsky’s “impertinent 
speeches” concerning “the royal lineage” had no basis in fact, and that 
the House of Romanov legally occupied the Russian throne.
Doubts, however, did not entirely disappear. It is possible that rumors 
about the existence of documents testifying to the Romanov’s usurpation 
of the throne continued to circulate within noble circles in the 1820’s. 
These rumors, most likely, had some influence on the Decembrists, 
whose uprising in 1825 aimed to overthrow the entire ruling dynasty.36 
 
In the autumn of 1823, the historian, N.M. Karamzin, requested 
documents relating to the Volynsky case from the Secret Chancery archives.37 At that time, Karamzin was working on the eleventh volume of 
his “History of the Russian State.” In particular, he was examining documents on the reign of Boris Godunov and False Dmitri I38. Volynsky’s 
case made a gloomy impression on Karamzin, but he apparently did not 
find any mention of “indecent” documents.  All harmful information had 
been cleansed years before.
At the beginning of the 1830’s, while gathering information about 
the first False Dmitri and the early Romanovs, the well-known historian 
V.N. Berkh tried to find traces of “indecent” documents in the archives 
of the Cabinet of Ministers.  His efforts came to naught. Berkh did note 
that a resolution dated June 23, 1736 indicated that compromising documents had been separated out from “decent” papers, “but an unknown 
fate has befallen them.” The historian expressed the hope that someday 
they would be found.39
The Volynsky case “surfaced” once again in the autumn of 1893 in 
connection with Count S.D. Sheremetev’s investigation into the identity 
of the first False Dmitri. Together with his colleague, K.N. BestuzhevRyumin, he sought the key to understanding Volynsky’s interest in the 
Time of Troubles. Judging by their correspondence, Sheremetev found 
nothing of significance. Bestuzhev-Ryumin wrote, “[I]f the documents 
are missing, then there is some necessary reason. It follows that the notion of imposture is not quite so strong.  All the documents of primary 
importance are missing.”40

The interest of Karamzin, Berkh, Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Sheremetev 
in the Volynsky case, their search for “indecent” documents while working on the history of the Time of Troubles, is a good indication that they 
all sought information that could shed light on False Dmitri’s origins.41 
These documents, they apparently hoped, might reveal the secret of the 
Romanovs’ role in the Pretender’s case and the circumstances surrounding the new dynasty’s accession. 
By the middle of the 19th century, only one so-called “indecent” document had been preserved. This was the portrait of Ivan IV’s “niece” purchased by von Korf, and even that had turned out to be a forgery. The portrait now hung in the Royal Danish Museum in Rosenborg. In 1872, the 
museum director, Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae, ordered a copy made of 
the portrait and donated it to the Kremlin Armory Museum.42 
The portrait sat in the vault of the Armory for about four years before 
Moscow historians expressed interest in it. These scholars did not doubt 
the identity of the person depicted in the portrait, but they were puzzled 
by the Queen of Livonia’s costume. Some saw it as “non-Russian,” and 
they were at a loss to explain the Catholic cross. Yuri Filimonov, guardian 
of the Armory Museum, expressed the official point of view. He strongly 
insisted that the artist had depicted the tsar’s niece in traditional Russian 
dress.43
The painting was last brought to public awareness on the eve of the 
October Revolution. S.P. Bartenev published the image in his book, “The 
Moscow Kremlin in the Old Days and Now,” in 1916.44 Then, surprisingly, the artifact vanished. At present, the Armory Museum staff has no 
information about how and when the portrait disappeared from its vault: 
“The portrait has never been in the museum’s storage and now nothing is 
known about it.”45

In conclusion, we can say that documents from the private “komnatnyaya” library of the Russian tsars presented a special danger to the accepted history of the Romanov dynasty.46 The compromising documents 
concerned the reigns of Ivan the Terrible and Mikhail Fedorovich. Specifically, the documents have a bearing on the circumstances of the Pretender Dmitri’s appearance and the accession of the first Romanov tsar. 
The nature of these documents may be surmised by the extreme measures 
– including provocations without and terror within the country – that the 
slightest possibility of their becoming public motivated the tsarist government to take.

Notes

1 Реформы Петра I: Сборник  документов. М., 1937. С. 108–135; Brown, 
Peter B. Muscovite Government Bureas // Russian History. 1983. Vol. 10. No. 
3. P. 269–330.
2 Appleby, John H. The Founding of St Petersburg in the Context of the 
Royal Society’s Relationship with Russia // Notes and Records of the Royal