Trubetskoi, Sergei Petrovich

Born Aug. 29 (Sept. 9), 1790, in Nizhny Novgorod (now Gorky); died Nov. 22 (Dec. 4), 1860, in Moscow. Decembrist; prince; colonel of the guards.

Trubetskoi joined the Semenovskii Life Guards Regiment in 1808 and moved to the Preobrazhenskii Life Guards Regiment in 1821. He took part in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in the foreign campaigns of the Russian Army of 1813 and 1814.

After returning to Russia, Trubetskoi helped found the first Decembrist secret societies: the Union of Salvation (1816) and the Union of Welfare (1818). As one of the organizers and leaders of the Northern Society of Decembrists, he showed political moderation; he advocated the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Russia and the emancipation of the serfs under a plan that would grant each peasant a small plot of land. Representing the Northern Society in negotiations with the Southern Society of Decembrists, he consented, under pressure from K. F. Ryleev’s group, to a joint uprising that was provisionally set for 1826. On the eve of the uprising, which took place on Dec. 14, 1825, Trubetskoi was chosen “dictator”; considering the rebellion inadequately prepared, however, he did not appear with the other Decembrists on Senate Square on the morning of the uprising.

Trubetskoi was sentenced to death for his part in the abortive rebellion, but the sentence was commuted to hard labor, which he served in Transbaikalia. After 1839 he lived in a settlement near Irkutsk. He was pardoned in 1856. Trubetskoi’s Notes were published in 1906.