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Wednesday, June 25, 2014

On 27 June 1905 the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin mutinied in an uprising that was immortalised in Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film of the same name.

Potemkin entered service in early 1905 after her gun turrets were fitted, and therefore did not take part in the disastrous Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Instead, by the end of June she was off the coast of Ukraine completing manoeuvres. It was here that rotten meat allegedly containing maggots was brought on board to feed the crew. Dissatisfied with the ship’s doctor’s opinion that the meat was fit for human consumption, the crew complained to the captain.

The ship’s second in command, Commander Ippolit Gilyarovsky, confronted the sailor’s delegation and killed spokesman Grigory Vakulenchuk. This triggered the mutiny, in which seven of the ship’s eighteen officers including Giliarovsky and the Captain were killed. The crew chose quartermaster Afanasi Matushenko to take control.

Having hoisted the red flag, Potemkin set sail for Odessa where a general strike was underway. Here the crew brought the body of the revolutionary spokesman Vakulenchuk ashore and laid it on the Odessa Steps where it acted as a focal point for locals to show their support for the sailors. However, by the evening the authorities received orders from the Tsar to take firm action. Estimates say that up to 2,000 civilians were killed.

Potemkin left Odessa the next day and sailed for Constanța in Romania. The ship was surrendered to the Romanian authorities in return for the sailors receiving safe passage. Potemkin was later returned to the Russian navy and was renamed Panteleimon.

1905-1-22 Bloody Sunday Massacre

1905-1-22 Bloody Sunday massacre, Russian capital St. Petersburg - HiPo > .

20th Century History (1900-1909) - HiPo >> .

On 22 January 1905 the Bloody Sunday massacre took place in the Russian capital St Petersburg.

By 1905 there was growing discontent amongst the Russian urban working class. Father Gapon, a Russian Orthodox priest, had established the Assembly of the Russian Factory and Mill Workers of the City of St Petersburg to promote workers’ rights in 1903 but, after four Assembly members from the Putilov ironworks were sacked from their jobs in December 1904, workers across the city went on strike.

Father Gapon sought to capitalise on the situation by drafting a petition to the Tsar calling for improved working conditions in the factories, alongside various other reforms. The petition received 150,000 signatures and, on the morning of 22 January, Father Gapon led workers and members of the Assembly on a march to deliver the petition to the Winter Palace. They carried religious icons and pictures of the Tsar with them.

Father Gapon had already notified the authorities of the petition and the march. In response approximately 10,000 armed troops from the Tsar’s Imperial Guard were placed around the palace.

Bloody Sunday or Red Sunday (Крова́вое воскресе́нье, tr. Krovávoe voskresénje) was the series of events on Sunday, 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1905 in St Petersburg, Russia, when unarmed demonstrators, led by Father Georgy Gapon, were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.

Bloody Sunday caused grave consequences for the Tsarist autocracy governing Imperial Russia: the events in St. Petersburg provoked public outrage and a series of massive strikes that spread quickly to the industrial centres of the Russian Empire. The massacre on Bloody Sunday is considered to be the start of the active phase of the Revolution of 1905. In addition to beginning the 1905 Revolution, historians such as Lionel Kochan in his book Russia in Revolution 1890–1918 view the events of Bloody Sunday to be one of the key events which led to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Why the soldiers began firing on the peaceful march is unclear. Even the number of marchers killed or injured is uncertain with estimates ranging from the government’s official figure of 96 dead to revolutionary claims of more than 4,000.

The Tsar was not in the palace at the time, and did not give an order for the troops to fire. Despite this he was widely blamed for the massacre. In response to the bloodshed, strikes and protests spread around the country. They eventually developed into the 1905 Revolution.