Nataliya A. Sokolova,
Chief Archivist, Information Services Sector of the Pre-1917 Documentation Storage, Central Archive of the City of Moscow, Moscow, Russia; e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
“There Is Another Life Where We Will Meet Each Other Again”: E. Pestel’s Letter to Her Son and His Answer. February – May 1826
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2020-6-8
The publication introduces E. Pestel’s letter to her imprisoned son, Decembrist P. Pestel, into scientific discourse. Preserved in copy in the archive fond of the magazine ‟Russky Arkhiv”, it was not published among the Pestel family correspondence in ‟Decembrist uprising. Documents. Volume XXII”. The textual history of the responding letter of the son to his parents is complicated. It was first published only in Russian translation in 1875 in the magazine “Russky Arkhiv”. In 1890 the historical journal “Russkaya Starina” published the shortened French text based on one of the copies distributed in public after the Decembrists’ execution. In Volume XXII of the ‘Decembrist uprising’ the translation made by “Russky Arkhiv” was republished with no regard to the French text. These two letters are the last lines of the dialogue between the parents and the son which was going on for almost 30 years. Only the letters of P. Pestel’s parents are left from this dialogue; his own letters are poorly preserved. Both correspondents had reason to think that these letters were the last ones, which is why many things are summed up in them, from family relationships and mutual obligations to discussions about duty and responsibility of an enlightened person and a patriot of one’s country.
Publishing: 31/12/2020
The article has been received by the editor on 30.08.2020
How to cite: Sokolova N.A. “There Is Another Life Where We Will Meet Each Other Again”: E. Pestel’s Letter to Her Son and His Answer. February – May 1826 // Historical Courier, 2020, No. 6 (14), pp. 118–127. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2020/ISTKURIER-2020-6-08.pdf
Links: Issue 6 2020
Keywords: Decembrists; investigation; Pestel family; epistolary