Kriukov, Nikolai

Kriukov, Nikolai Aleksandrovich 

Born around 1800, in Nizhny Novgorod, now the city of Gorky; died May 30 (June 11), 1854, in Minusinsk. Decembrist; lieutenant. Son of the governor of Nizhny Novgorod.

After graduating from military college (in 1819), Kriukov served in the Second Army in the Ukraine, where he became closely associated with P. I. PesteP. After joining the TuPchin Council of the Union of Welfare in the summer of 1820, he took part in the establishment of the Southern Society of Decembrists and became one of its ideologists. Kriukov shared the ideas of the Russkaia pravda of PesteF, and in his own works he developed certain of its individual positions.

Kriukov strove to provide a theoretical groundwork for the future revolution; he was a convinced republican and a militant atheist. During the period of preparation for the armed uprising he carried out a number of responsible missions for PesteP. He brought about a link between the TuPchin Council with S. I. Murav’ev-Apostol and traveled to VasiPkov; he also helped to conceal the manuscripts of Russkaia pravda from the authorities. Kriukov, as well as his Decembrist brother Aleksandr (1794–1867), was sentenced to 20 years of forced labor and permanent settlement in Siberia. Broken spiritually and physically, Kriukov abandoned his revolutionary and atheistic ideas.

WORKS

In Izbr. sotsiarno-politicheskie i filosofskie proizvedeniia dekabristov, vol. 2. Moscow, 1951.

L. A. SOKOL’SKII