Gerasim Matveevich Kurin

Born 1777 in the village of Pavlovo, now the city of Pavlovskii Posad, Moscow Oblast; died there June 12 (24), 1850. Organizer and leader of a large peasant partisan detachment in the Patriotic War of 1812; a serf.

After Napoleon’s troops captured the city of Bogorodsk on September 23, Kurin formed a detachment (5,300 infantrymen and 500 cavalrymen) from peasants of the volost (small rural district) of Vokhnovo, persuaded the head of Vokhnovo, E. S. Stulov, and the troop commander I. Ia. Chushkin to take over the command of this detachment, and established contact with Prince B. A. Golitsyn, the commander of the Vladimir People’s Militia. From September 23 to October 2, Kurin’s detachment was involved in seven engagements with Napoleon’s troops. Kurin was awarded the Military Order Badge (the soldiers’ St. George’s Cross).