In spring 1818 prince Serge Volkonsky (1860-1937) organized the first exhibition on the Decembrists in the history of the Soviet Russia at People’s House in Borisoglebsk. The exhibition was entitled Decembrists as the First Freedom Fighters. The event was dedicated to the memory of his grandfather, the Decembrist Sergey Grigorievich Volkonsky (1788-1865).
Sergey Volkonsky came from a princely family, he got a great education. The prince participated in the Patriotic War in 1812. For his distinguished service he was promoted to the rank of Mayor General. However, in the course of time the prince got disappointed in the existing political system and joined the ranks of the Decembrists in 1819. The arrest for his anti-state activity followed in 1826. He was sentenced to penal servitude for twenty years in Siberia.
His grandson did a lot for preserving memory about the heroic period of Sergey Grigorievich’s life, saved and kept the attributes of the time. It was Serge Volkonsky who finished working on the manuscript The Archive of the Decembrist S. G. Volkonsky.
For the exhibition in 1918 the prince prepared and printed the catalogue Decembrists as the First Freedom Fighters with two hundred copies. The catalogue started with the small introduction: ‘The following exhibition was motivated by a desire to use rich and various material of the Decembrists history for the public interest. By a happy chance the material is kept in Borisoglebsk uyezd. This is the first Decembrists exhibition in Russia. Let it serve as a warning to the ones who appreciate the past and the future life of our motherland, … an adequate tribute to the first freedom fighters in Russia.’
The exposition was exhibited in four spaces and was divided into four thematic collections: Before Siberia, Siberia, Official Russia, The Return. All exhibit items (portraits, paintings, documents, personal belongings from the Sergey Volkonsky’s archive) were taken by his grandson from the family estate Pavlovka.
When the exhibition was closed, at the prince’s instruction the exhibit items were moved to Moscow, and then they were divided between the capital’s museums. Some of the Volkonskys’ personal belongings were given to the local school museum. For many years they travelled between different museum collections, either going to the collection of the interior of the landlordly everyday life, or exhibited in the different showcases as objects from the Volkonsky family. Only one of two hundred copies of the catalogue printed in 1918 by Borisoglebovsky printing house survived to the present day. It was the basis for the concept of the first hall at the Siberian Passage exposition.
