Nikolai Stefanowitsch Beschanizki

Nikolai Beschanitsky

Nikolai Stefanowitsch Beschanizki ( Russian Николай Стефанович Бежаницкий , even Nikolai Bezhanitsky , Nikolai Beshanitsky , Nikolai Beshanitzky , Nikolai Bežanitski or Bezhanitskiy transcribed; * 14. December 1859 in Priipalu in Tartu county in the Governorate of Livonia , now Estonia ; † 14. January 1919 in Tartu ) was a Russian Orthodox priest and martyr .

The dates in this article are based on the Julian calendar for the period up to 1918 unless otherwise noted.

Life

Nikolai Beschanizki was the son of a priest and attended the Riga church school from 1871 . He and his four brothers also became priests. In 1881 he accordingly graduated from the Riga seminary. On January 16, 1883 he married Marija Ivanovna Kasarinowa, a daughter of the priest Johannes Kasarinow. She bore him two daughters.

He served in Pernowski Ujesd, then in Võru , later in Viljandi . He was unable to kneel due to an injury sustained in his youth. However, carried away by the liturgy, he sometimes fell on his knees during the service, with the result that he could no longer get up. Therefore, the community leader always had to be close to him in order to be able to help him up again.

During the revolution of 1905 he saved the lives of eight people who had been wrongly sentenced to death by shooting. He was taking great personal risks and giving comfort to others. He had a reputation for being above politics, but without staying out of it. Rather, he publicly called for leniency towards all who were innocently carried away by the tide of the revolution. He enjoyed a great reputation, especially since he was ready to save everyone, be he Protestant or Orthodox, Estonian or Russian. Beshanitsky was elected to the first State Duma of Russia.

From 1908, Beschanizki served as head of the St. George's community in Tartu. As a priest he had a reputation for charity, he was considered a consolation for the poor and needy and was known for his catechetical and educational work. He often worked with the Tartu students, who held him in high regard, and held weddings for poor people without charging any fees.

During the Estonian War of Freedom , the Bolsheviks took control of Tartu on December 21, 1918. Although Beschanizki was not yet 60 years old, he was already bent with age and gray-haired. His mother, daughter and grandson were in Tbilisi to wait for the turmoil to end.

On January 4, 1919, Beschanizki was given permission to stay in Tartu until January 20, due to his age.

The next day, however, the Bolsheviks arrested Beshanitsky during a service in St. George's Church. He was taken to the credit bank that served as a makeshift prison. 230 people have already been held there, including Bishop Platon Kulbusch , his secretary Protodiacon Konstantin Dorin and the priests Michael Bleive and Alexander Bryantsev. The room was crowded and the conditions of detention harsh. Beschanizki is said to have behaved calmly and with dignity, he comforted and helped everyone who needed it. The other prisoners called him their "patriarch". There were also 60 to 80 women among them.

On January 14, the Estonian and Finnish troops approached Tartu, whereupon the Bolsheviks began at 10:30 a.m. to shoot prisoners or to kill them with ax blows on the skull. The executions took place in the so-called murder cellar . The procedure was reconstructed in a later investigation:

The prisoners had to line up in a row. A commissioner came into the cell and the names of the victims were called. The detective led out the death row inmates. The first was the bishop, followed by the baker Lutsk. Nikolai Beschanizki, his brother Michael Bleive and the evangelical clergyman Traugott Hahn had to leave the cell together. Plato was the first to be shot. A survivor later reported what happened next:

In the large central hall, Beschanizki had to take off his outer clothing and put it on a table. The personal belongings of the bishop and Michael Bleives were already there. Under guard, Beschanizki was then taken to the basement entrance of the bank, where he then stood barefoot and without outer clothing in the snow. The shootings could be heard from here. A few minutes later, Beschanitski was ordered to go down. He had to go through the basement to a low arch in the left corner, which turned out to be the passage into the execution room. He had to walk over disfigured corpses in the middle of the room and seconds later he was hit in the middle of his face by an ax, according to the later investigation.

Michael Bleive, Traugott Hahn, the Protestant pastor Moritz Wilhelm Paul Schwartz and 14 other respected citizens of Tartus also died here. Among the victims were also simple craftsmen such as the butcher Eugen Massal and the master potter Ado Luik. (A list of the names of all the victims can be found in the chapter “Afterlife”.) There were further killings with an anti-religious background at Peplerstrasse 32. A total of 300 people were killed by them in the 24 days of the occupation of Tartus by the Bolsheviks.

Afterlife

Detection situation

Due to the rapid advance of the Estonian and Finnish troops, the Bolsheviks had to withdraw before a second group of prisoners could be taken and shot. This made it possible for the doctor Dr. Wolfgang von Reyher to inspect the execution site with the victims in the morning. Based on his report and photographic recordings, some of which are printed in the book by Köhrer given below, some details about the shootings are known:

The place of the executions was reached through a dark, vaulted cellar that was about ten paces long. The actual place of execution was entered through a low arch on the left side, under which one had to bend down. The adjoining room, also dark and damp, was about eight paces long and five paces wide. The sight that met him there, Dr. by Reyher with Dante Alighieri's Inferno. The bodies, clad only in underwear, took up the entire room and lay one on top of the other, in the middle in three layers, so that entering the room was impossible without stepping on human bodies. Their positions appeared unnatural. The shots were apparently carried out at close range, so the injuries were correspondingly severe. The gunshot wounds mostly affected the head, in some cases to the point of complete destruction; in one case the head was almost completely severed from the body. Some of the victims had been killed by ax blows on the skull. The walls and floor of the room were heavily soiled with blood, brain matter and skull fragments, as was the bed that was in the room. Several victims had been shot several times. Dr. Von Reyher initially counted 23 bodies; a mistake could quickly arise, however, as it was difficult to identify individual bodies in the pile. No one in this room had survived. According to these observations, the executions are likely to have proceeded in such a way that after the victims had taken off their outer clothing in the execution room, they encountered the bodies of those who had already been killed and were shot immediately or with an ax blow from the passage. This assumption is supported by the fact that there were no signs of execution in the anteroom. The bodies were transferred to the anatomy and photographed there.

The following could be identified:

• Plato Kulbusch
• Michael Bleive
• Nikolai Stefanowitsch Beschanizki
• Traugott rooster
• Hermann von Samson-Himmelstjerna from Kawershof
• Heinrich von Krause, the owner of Rewold
• Banker Arnold von Tideboehl
• Herbert von Schrenck
• Baron Konstantin von Knorring
• Moritz Wilhelm Paul Schwartz
• City Councilor Gustav Tensmann
• City Councilor Gustav Seeland
• Merchant Susman Kaplan
• Ado Luik
• Merchant Harry Vogel
• Merchant Eugene Massal
• Friedrich Kärner, Postimees employee

The faces of Beschanizki and Bleive had been disfigured almost beyond recognition by the fatal blows of the ax.

Funeral service

The funeral service for Beschanitski, Bleive and Plato took place on January 18th in the Dormition Cathedral in Tartu, with the participation of priests A. Beschanizki, J. Paavel, A. Bryantsev, K. Savi, K. Kokla and G. Kiiman. Nikolai Beschanizki and Bleive were buried in the church.

Tenth anniversary

The day of the conquest of Tartus by the Estonian and Finnish troops, which also marked the death of Beschanizki, Plato and their companions, has been declared an annual general remembrance day by the Estonian democratic government. For many years, a triumphant pannikhida (commemorative mass) was held in the Dormition Cathedral on January 14th for the priests buried there in the presence of all Orthodox and Protestant clergy in the city. The 10th anniversary on January 14, 1929, on which the memorial in the basement of the credit bank was inaugurated, may serve as an example of the celebrations:

Start of the day and pageant

At 8 o'clock in the morning all the church bells in Tartu rang. Numerous flags were attached to the houses. The streets were filled with people. Thanksgiving services were held in the churches. In the schools the directors gave speeches and lectures.

A procession of clergymen of all denominations moved towards the basement of the credit bank and reached the meat market in front of the building at noon. Part of the procession, led by Bishop Kukk and Metropolitan Alexander, descended into the cellar, the rest, accompanied by a thousand people, stayed in front of the entrance, where there was a catheter. The cellar was neat and well lit. In the second basement room there was a black cross on the wall.

Plaque with the names of the victims

To the right and left of the cross were two plaques with the names of the victims. So it said on the right panel:

Bishop Plato,

Hermann von Samson-Himmelstjerna,

Herbert von Schrenck,

Pastor Wilhelm Schwartz,

Gustav Seeland,

Gustav Tensmann,

Arnold v. Tideboehl,

a stranger,

Harry Vogel.

Died as martyrs 1./14. 1919.

And on the other board:

High Priest Nikolai Beshanitzky,

High Priest Michail Bleive,

Karl Bentsen,

Pastor Prof. D. Traugott Hahn,

Susman Kaplan,

Konstantin von Knorring,

Heinrich von Krause,

Friedrich Kärner,

Ado Luik,

Eugene Massal.

In the room where these people died, a cross was set in the floor. The many bullet marks in the walls were still clearly visible. The tablets no longer exist today.

Interreligious, multilingual worship service

The metropolitan celebrated a soul mass in the cellar, the priest Kokla in front of the building. Those present took off their headgear and remained in silence. Then the service, for which trilingual song sheets had been distributed, began with a song. Then Bishop Kukk spoke, then Metropolitan Alexander. High Priest Ostroumov described in Russian the events that had happened here ten years earlier. Words of remembrance for the deceased followed: from Provost K. von Zur-Mühlen in German, from Rabbi Mostovsky in Yiddish and Hebrew, and from Prof. O. Seesemann in Latvian. The service ended with a word of thanks from the memorial committee, represented by Pastor Treumann, and the national anthem. A telegram from State Elder August Rei had also been received for the inauguration of the memorial .

parade

After the service, those present went to the parade on Rathausplatz. For this purpose, all units of the Tartu garrison had taken up, as well as the protective corps and other organizations such as student associations. The latter stood in a semicircle in front of the town hall, the military on the left side of the square, the protection corps and the other organizations on the right.

canonization

Nikolai Beschanizki was canonized by the Orthodox Church. His relics were collected on May 30, 2005. His feast day is January 1st in the Julian calendar and January 14th in the Orthodox calendar , which currently runs parallel to the Gregorian calendar .

literature

• Oskar Schabert: Baltic Martyrs Book , Berlin 1926, Furche-Verlag, p. 85

Web links

• Article about Nikolai Beschanizki on the website of the Orthodox Church of Estonia
• Article by Jüri Poska about Platon Kulbusch on the website of the Orthodox Church of Estonia
• Vladimir Moss: The holy new martyrs of northern and western Russia, Belorussia and the Baltic
• Erich Köhrer: The true face of Bolshevism !, Berlin 1919, pp. 18-20
• Article about Bishop Plato and companions on Orthodox.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ Burchard Lieberg: From the life of the Ev.-Luth. Church of Estonia in: Günther Schulz (editor): Church in the East , volumes 42-43, 1999-2000, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-56396-5 , p. 138
2. ↑ Twenty years ago. in Evangelium und Osten: Russian Evangelical Press Service , No. 5, May 1, 1939, online at Beshanitzky | issueType: P
3. ↑ Bolshevism in the Evening Post , Volume XCVII, Issue 147, June 24, 1919, page 2, online at [1]
4. ↑ Canada. Dept. of Public Information: Bolshevism in Russia , Dept. of Public Information, Ottawa 1919, pp. 33f
5. ↑ 10-year celebration in Dorpat in the Rigaschen Rundschau , No. 14, January 7, 1929, online at Schwartz | issueType: P