I. Yakushkin (1793-1857)

In 1836 Ivan Yakushkin, a retired captain, a participant of the Borodino battle, a founder of the ‘Rescue Union’ and ‘Welfare Union’, was moved to Yalutorovsk. Yakushkin was condemned under the highest 1st grade. Before Yalutorovsk he spent 8 years on penalty servitude in Chita. In Yalutorovsk Yakushkin suffered a severe blow on part of the fate. His wife was not allowed to follow her husband to Siberia. Over 14 years Ivan Yakushkin would actively correspond with her. In 1846 Anastasia Yakushkina died. Yakushkin suffered greatly through this tragedy. His exertions for organization educational institutions in Yalutorovsk could only help him to get dissipated from his grief. In 1842 despite various obstacles male school was opened in Yalutorovsk. In 1846 in memory of his wife a female he organized a female school. These public schools available for everybody manifested an important stage in development of public education within Siberia. During his stay in Yalutorovsk Yakushkin was engaged in studying local nature. In his works on history and philosophy he would try to anticipate the ways of further political development of Russia. Yakushin also had left an important trace in Russian literature. His ‘Notes of the Decembrist’ were published in London by Hertzen. It was he who first received a famous poem of Pushkin ‘Within the depth of Siberian copper mines’. Pushkin also mentioned Yakushkin in his poem ‘Evgeni Onegin’, and his fellow-student Alexander Gribojedov made a protagonist of the poem ‘Misfortune from wisdom’ like Yakushkin. After the general amnesty in 1856 Yakushkin left Yalutorovsk and settled in the village Novinka near Moscow. His health got aggravated during the exile, and in August 1857 he died.