Pavel Spiridonovich Medvedev (
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
: Павел Спиридонович Медведев; 1888 – 12 March 1919) was a
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
revolutionary, head of the external guard of the
Ipatiev House
Ipatiev House (russian: Дом Ипатьева) was a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg (later renamed Sverdlovsk in 1924, renamed back to Yekaterinburg in 1991) where the former Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), h ...
in Yekaterinburg, a direct participant in the
execution
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...
of the last Russian Emperor
Nicholas II
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...
, his family, and those close to him on the night of 17 July 1918.
[
]
Biography
Medvedev was born in 1888 in Sysert
Sysert (russian: Сысе́рть) is a town and the administrative center of Sysertsky District of Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Sysert River ( Ob basin, right tributary of the Iset), south of Yekaterinburg. Population:
Histo ...
, part of the Perm Governorate
Perm Governorate (russian: link=no, Пермская губерния) was an administrative unit of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union from 1781 to 1923. It was also known as the ''government of Perm''. It was located on both slopes of t ...
. He worked at the Sysert plant prior to the First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. During World War I, he joined the Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army (russian: Ру́сская импера́торская а́рмия, tr. ) was the armed land force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian Ar ...
and went to fight at the front, and rose to the rank of non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...
. In 1917, he became a member of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),; abbreviated in Russian as or also known by #Name, various other names during its history, was the founding and ruling party of the Soviet Union. The CPSU was the One-party state, sole governing ...
, and subsequently participated in the suppression of the anti-Soviet uprising of Ataman
Ataman (variants: ''otaman'', ''wataman'', ''vataman''; Russian: атаман, uk, отаман) was a title of Cossack and haidamak leaders of various kinds. In the Russian Empire, the term was the official title of the supreme military comman ...
Alexander Dutov
Alexander Ilyich Dutov () (, Kazalinsk, Russian Empire – 7 February 1921, Shuiding, China) was one of the leaders of the Cossack counterrevolution in the Urals, lieutenant general (1919).
Dutov was born in Kazalinsk in Syr-Darya Oblast (now Ka ...
.
Execution of the Romanovs
By the time that the former Emperor Nicholas II, his family, and their retinue were transferred to Yekaterinburg and handed over to the Ural Soviet on the prior suggestion of Filipp Goloshchekin
Filipp Isayevich Goloshchyokin (russian: Филипп Исаевич Голощёкин) (born Shaya Itsikovich) (russian: Шая Ицикович) ( – October 28, 1941) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, and party functiona ...
, Medvedev was serving in the city as part of the local Red Guard
Red Guards () were a mass student-led paramilitary social movement mobilized and guided by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 through 1967, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a Red Guard lead ...
. Medvedev headed the external security of the "House of Special Purpose" from the moment the imperial family arrived in Yekaterinburg, on April 30, 1918, until their execution. It was he who informed the local Chekists about the drunkenness and disobedience of the internal guards who reigned under the first commandant of the Ipatiev House, a locksmith named Alexander Avdeev. After that, Avdeev was removed by the Ural Soviet, and replaced by the Chekist Yakov Yurovsky
Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (; Unless otherwise noted, all dates used in this article are of the Gregorian Calendar, as opposed to the Julian Calendar which was used in Russia prior to . – 2 August 1938) was a Russian Old Bolshevik, revo ...
, who established strict procedures. Medvedev worked closely with Yurovsky during the family's incarceration.
On the night of July 17, 1918, Medvedev, along with Yurovsky and several other Chekists and Red Army soldiers, was a direct participant in the execution of the imperial family. Medvedev's external guard, who did not take part in the shooting and were disarmed by Medvedev and Yurovsky shortly prior to the executions, out of fear they might have sympathized with the family, were employed as stretcher-bearers to transport the corpses from the basement to the truck outside where Goloshchekin was waiting. After the execution, when Yurovsky and Peter Ermakov
Pyotr Zakharovich Ermakov (; – 22 May 1952) was a Russian people, Russian Bolshevik revolutionary, notable as one of several men responsible for the execution of the Romanov family, including the deposed Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, their ...
left with Goloshchekin to bury the corpses at Ganina Yama
Ganina Yama (Russian: Га́нина Я́ма, "Ganya’s Pit") was a deep pit in the Four Brothers mine near the village of Koptyaki, 15 km (10 miles) north from Yekaterinburg. In the pre-dawn hours of 17 July 1918, after the execution of ...
, Medvedev organized a full cleaning in the Ipatiev House to hide the traces of the murders.
Civil War and death
After the White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...
Czechs
The Czechs ( cs, Češi, ; singular Czech, masculine: ''Čech'' , singular feminine: ''Češka'' ), or the Czech people (), are a West Slavic ethnic group and a nation native to the Czech Republic in Central Europe, who share a common ancestry, c ...
took
Took is a variant of the English surname Tooke, originally found predominantly in the East Anglia region of the United Kingdom.
The name Took may refer to:
People
*Barry Took (1928–2002), British comedian and television presenter
*Steve Pe ...
Yekaterinburg, eight days after the execution of the royal family, Medvedev along with the remnants of the Red Army detachments retreated to Perm
Perm or PERM may refer to:
Places
*Perm, Russia, a city in Russia
**Permsky District, the district
**Perm Krai, a federal subject of Russia since 2005
**Perm Oblast, a former federal subject of Russia 1938–2005
**Perm Governorate, an administrat ...
, and in the winter of 1918 participated in the defense of the city. By orders of his commanders, he was supposed to blow up the bridge over the Kama River
The Kama (russian: Ка́ма, ; tt-Cyrl, Чулман, ''Çulman''; udm, Кам) is a long[«Река ...]
while retreating, but did not have time and was captured by the Whites as a prisoner of war.[
In captivity, he hid his identity, introduced himself by the name Bobylev, was soon released and worked as an orderly in a hospital, where he soon confessed to a ]sister of mercy
A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...
that he has served in the guard of the Ipatiev House. The sister reported this to the authorities and on February 11, 1919, Medvedev was arrested in Perm by the criminal investigation agent S.I. Alekseev.
Medvedev was interrogated by the White Guard investigators who were investigating the murder of the imperial family on behalf of the local governor, Mikhail Diterikhs
Mikhail Konstantinovich Diterikhs (russian: Михаи́л Константи́нович Ди́терихс, r=Michaíl Konstantinovič Díterichs; May 17, 1874 – September 9, 1937) served as a general in the Imperial Russian Army and subsequent ...
. During interrogations, he denied his personal involvement in the execution, claiming that during the murder he was sent out into the street to find out if shots were heard outside. He was charged with "murder by prior conspiracy with other persons and the seizure of the property of the former Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, the heir Alexei Nikolaevich and Grand Duchesses Olga
Olga may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Olga (name), a given name, including a list of people and fictional characters named Olga or Olha
* Michael Algar (born 1962), English singer also known as "Olga"
Places
Russia
* Olga, Russia, ...
, Maria
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
*170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
*Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...
, Tatyana
Tatiana (or Tatianna, also romanized as Tatyana, Tatjana, Tatijana, etc.) is a female name of Sabine-Roman origin that became widespread in Eastern Europe.
Variations
* be, Тацця́на, Tatsiana
* bg, Татяна, Tatyana
* germ ...
, Anastasia
Anastasia (from el, Ἀναστασία, translit=Anastasía) is a feminine given name of Greek origin, derived from the Greek word (), meaning "resurrection". It is a popular name in Eastern Europe, particularly in Russia, where it was the most ...
, as well as the physician Dr. Botkin, the maid Anna Demidova
Anna Stepanovna Demidova (26 January 1878 – 17 July 1918) was a lady-in-waiting in the service of Empress Alexandra of Russia. She stayed with the Romanov family when they were arrested, and was executed together with Alexandra and the Roman ...
, the cook Kharitonov and the footman Troupe
Troupe may refer to:
General
*Comedy troupe, a group of comedians
*Dance troupe, a group of dancers
**Fire troupe, a group of fire dancers
*Troupe system, a method of playing role-playing games
*Theatrical troupe, a group of theatrical performers
...
", and was transferred to Yekaterinburg and scheduled to be personally interrogated by the investigator Nikolai Sokolov, a private investigator from the Omsk Regional Court who had recently been appointed to oversee the investigation. Ultimately, however, on March 12, 1919, Medvedev reportedly died of typhus in the Yekaterinburg Prison, apparently, as a result of the poor conditions in which he was being held. Medvedev's widow, however, insisted that he had been killed in custody by the White Guards.
Notes
He was not related to fellow executioner Mikhail Kudrin, who was also shared the surname Medvedev.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Medvedev, Pavel
1888 births
1919 deaths
People from Sysertsky District
People from Yekaterinburgsky Uyezd
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members
Old Bolsheviks
Russian military personnel of World War I
People of the Russian Civil War
20th-century Russian criminals
Regicides of Nicholas II
Murder of the Romanov family
Russian executioners
Soviet executioners
Russian mass murderers
Russian murderers of children
Deaths from typhus
Russian people who died in prison custody
Prisoners who died in Russian detention