Mombelli, Nikolai

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1823, in Novozybkov; died Dec. 14 (27), 1902, in Vladikavkaz, now Ordzhonikidze. Figure in the Russian liberation movement; member of the Petrashevskii circle; lieutenant of the Moscow Imperial Guards Regiment.

In 1846, Mombelli organized a literary and political circle of officers whose members were interested in socialist teachings. From the autumn of 1848 he was a participant in the “Fridays” of M. V. Petrashevskii’s circle. Mombelli worked out a plan for a secret “fraternity of mutual aid” and proposed establishing a home lithographic printing plant to publish articles against the government. He was sentenced to be shot in the Petrashevskii case, but the sentence was commuted to 15 years at hard labor in Siberia at the Aleksandrovskii Silver-smelting Plant. He was sent to the Caucasus as a private under amnesty granted in 1856. Mombelli was made an officer in 1859. He became a major in the Shrivanskii Regiment in 1865. Mombelli died in retirement.