Pushchin, Ivan

Born May 4(15), 1798, in Moscow; died Apr. 3(15), 1859. Decembrist.

The son of a senator, Pushchin studied at the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum with A. S. Pushkin, who called him his best and beloved friend. After graduating in 1817, he became an officer in the guards’ mounted artillery. He retired from service in 1823 and in December of that year became a judge in the Moscow nadvornyi sud (court for noblemen).

In 1816 and 1817, Pushchin belonged to the Holy Artel political circle. In the summer of 1817 he was accepted into the Union of Salvation. Early in 1818 he joined the Union of Welfare, and later the Northern Society of the Decembrists. In 1823 he organized the St. Petersburg council of the society, and in 1825, with E. P. Obolenskii, the society’s Moscow council.

Pushchin helped prepare the December 14 uprising on Senate Square and was arrested two days later. His death sentence was commuted to 20 years of hard labor in Turinsk and Ialuto-rovsk. In 1839 he went to a penal colony. After the 1856 amnesty, he was permitted to return to St. Petersburg owing to illness. He died in the village of Mar’ino, formerly in Bronnitsy District, and was buried in Bronnitsy.