“Yes, you’re old, but you’re wise too. So tell me something. What should I think of the Great White Czar?”
Extracts of an article from a
Moscow military journal from June 1904
“[…] I have been asked to collect my memories and describe our life in the First Cadet Corps of Saint Petersburg in the 1840s, when I shared a room with Jamal Eddin Shamil, the son of the famous imam. I don’t feel any particular need to do so, but since I am one of the last surviving members of the class, I acquiesced, and I shall begin.
“My name is Alexander Alexeyevitch Milyutin. I am the youngest of the Milyutins, who gave Russia the reforms we all know. But, unlike my older brothers, I have accomplished nothing that justifies my taking up the pen as I have been asked to do. I did not reorganize the army, like my brother Dmitri Alexeyevitch, nor did I work for the emancipation of the serfs, like my brother Nicholas Alexeyevitch. I wasn’t even a childhood friend of Leo Tolstoy, like my brother Vladimir Alexeyevitch.
“A short while after the death of my mother, when I was about ten, our uncle, Count Pavel Dmitrievitch Kiselyev, succeeded in obtaining for me what he had failed to obtain for the others. He convinced the Grand Duke Mikhaïl Pavlovitch to have me accepted as a cadet in the First Corps, the most prestigious military school in the Empire, and the most difficult to be admitted to after the Pages’ Corps. The First Cadet Corps only accepted the offspring of the most illustrious families, whose ancestors had been cadets themselves. We stayed there for eight years. When we left, we became officers in one of the imperial family’s regiments. The Czar was so fond of this institution that he had his own sons educated there. As for me, I belonged to the minor nobility and I was poor. That Count Kiselyev’s patronage should extend to my humble person was a miracle. I was drunk with joy.
“The cadets, friends of my older brothers who often came to my uncle’s home, tried to temper my enthusiasm with a few warnings. It was no use, I was swept up in the honor of having been admitted to such a company. For example, they insisted that I should prepare to be beaten by the older cadets. That even if they broke my bones, even if I bled like an ox, I would have to defend myself alone and without complaint. They also told me that, if anyone asked me who had done this to me, I must reply, ‘I don’t know.’ If a superior should punish me for not having answered his question, even if he should beat me, starve me, and put me in solitary confinement, I should still reply, ‘I don’t know.’ In short, they initiated me into what they called ‘the rules of Corps life’ and assured me that I would suffer at first.
“The school was housed in the Menchikov Palace, just as it is today, next to the Beaux Arts Academy on Vassilievsky Island. It consisted of a complex of austere buildings with several courtyards, stables, an equestrian ring, and huge rooms for fencing and gymnastics. Although it seemed immense at first, I soon found it cramped.
“I was placed in what was called a ‘company without specialty,’ reserved for those who had not yet decided whether they would serve in the infantry, the artillery, or the cavalry. When I presented myself before this company, there wasn’t a single bed available, and all the other companies’ dormitories were full as well. For this reason, I was put up in a big separate bedroom that was reserved for the Cherkess students, about twenty of them. The bed I was assigned was next to that of Shamil’s son. I had heard his story from my brother Dmitri, who had told me about the siege of Akulgo.
“Jamal Eddin Shamil had just arrived from the Alexandrovsky Cadet Corps where he had been for almost two years. He had been admitted here at the Czar’s expense, out of his own purse, with two other orphans (whose names I still remember: Pavel Kolosov and Alexi Kirdan), either due to their excellent academic results or their superiority at physical exercises. I suspect the latter was the case for Jamal Eddin, for his classmates took great pleasure in describing how he distinguished himself on his first day at the Alexandrovsky Corps by refusing to be undressed by any of the teachers or to be touched or even approached by a doctor. And that, despite his recurring problems with discipline, he had become the glory of the school, unbeatable in the long jump, leapfrog, mountain races, and rope climbing. To hear them tell it, his exploits surpassed all the records of all the cadets of every age since the creation of the orphanage. As for equitation, at the year-end review in the big ring at Tsarskoye Sielo, Czar Nicholas, who prided himself on being the best horseman of his generation, saw him in the saddle. A glance at Jamal Eddin was enough to make him understand that this was not a ten-year-old on a horse but a magnificent centaur, straight out of mythology—and in the future, an incomparable cavalry officer.
“The three new cadets from the Alexandrovsky Corps had arrived in Saint Petersburg a few weeks before me. Though I felt far inferior to the other cadets, by wealth and by birth, I felt close to these three.
“Our great preoccupation was the ‘uniform question.’ As long as we weren’t wearing a uniform, we weren’t considered cadets. My uncle had neglected this detail. As for my three friends, their uniforms had been sent back to their old school so that the Director could hand them down to other orphans. The administration gave Pavel Kolosov and Alexi Kirdan old jackets to wear during the time it took for the tailor to make them new ones. As for Jamal Eddin Shamil, the administration returned his Circassian costume to him. He was dressed as a Cherkess, placed in the Cherkess dormitory, and treated like a Cherkess. The very fact of being able to wear his cherkeska again made Jamal Eddin fervently grateful. It almost made him happy.
“He now spoke Russian without any accent and his years at Tsarskoye Sielo had inured him to the ‘rules of Corps life’: lie to one’s superiors, defend one’s friends, never denounce another cadet. He had mastered these rules to perfection and took me under his wing.
“Some of the hazing was really out of line, but the supervisors did nothing to stop it. As long as a new boy did not explicitly complain and reveal the names of his aggressors, they looked the other way. As first years, we couldn’t go out for the first six months anyway, as that was the period before our first examination. During those six months, we had time to get ourselves in shape. Those who didn’t, those who died from the harsh treatment and those who were crippled for life, weren’t made for the Russian army anyway.
“Jamal Eddin and I were the same age, but he was more mature, taller and slimmer and much more agile. It wasn’t just that he was as lithe as a cat; in addition to being supple, he was swifter than anyone I’d ever seen, even more so than his compatriots. He never let anyone hurt me and sent anyone who expressed any inclination to pick a quarrel with me to the devil. He knew how to fight, how to kick and fight with his fists, but when his adversaries ganged up on him—he was, after all, young in comparison to the twenty-year-old cadets—the other Cherkesses came to his rescue.
“The Cherkesses in our dorm room got along well among themselves, and all of them liked to wrestle. I often participated in their fights […].
“I admired Jamal Eddin so much, and I was so grateful to him that, one day, I decided I wanted to show him that I knew how to defend myself if anyone ever bothered me. So I intentionally elbowed a cadet who happened to be passing in the hall. The cadet turned around and called me a ‘Dutchman,’ an insult reserved for those of us who didn’t have uniforms yet. In response, I punched him in the nose. He started to bleed and went to the supervisor to tell on me. When the supervisor came to find me, I got scared. I didn’t know what to say. That was when Jamal Eddin intervened. He said it wasn’t my fault, that the older boy had pinched me and hit me and that I had only shoved him to defend myself. The older boy was unjustly given a caning. Jamal Eddin, judging him guilty of having complained to a superior, let the punishment take its course.