Ivan Gorbachevskii

Born Sept. 22 (Oct. 4), 1800; died Jan. 9 (21), 1869, in Petrovskii Zavod, now Petrovsk-Zabaikal’skii, Chita Oblast. Decembrist, second lieutenant of artillery.

Gorbachevskii came from the indigent Ukrainian dvor-ianstvo (nobility or gentry). He inherited a small estate upon the death of his mother but refused it and gave it to the peasants for their use, completely and without compensation. At the end of 1823 he was accepted into the Society of United Slavs. He soon became one of its most active figures. He carried on revolutionary propaganda among soldiers and officers. When the Society of United Slavs joined the Southern Society of Decembrists, he linked up the artillery group of the former “Slavs” with the leadership of the Vasil’kov council of the Southern Society. An advocate of executing the royal family, Gorbachevskii counted himself among those who would make an attempt on the life of Alexander I. During the uprising of the Chernigov Regiment (Dec. 29, 1825 to Jan. 3, 1826), he and other officers tried to rouse the neighboring military units. In 1826 he was sentenced to life at hard labor, which he served in Chita and Petrovskii Zavod. In 1839 he moved to the settlement at Petrovskii Zavod. In exile he belonged to the more democratic group of the Decembrists. He left Memoirs, a valuable source for studying the history of Decembrism.