George Gapon

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Father Gapon
Father Gapon

Georgi Apollonovich Gapon (Russian: Георгий Аполлонович Гапон; 17 February [O.S. 5 February] 1870 — 10 April [O.S. 28 March] 1906) was a Russian Orthodox priest and a popular working class leader before the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Gapon was the son of a wealthy farmer from the Poltava region. He was educated in a theological seminary and married in 1896, but was widowed in 1898. He then moved to Saint Petersburg and graduated from its theological academy in 1902. Gapon became a religious teacher at the St Olga children orphanage, from 1900. In 1902 Gapon was discharged, by the Holy Synod, from his duties as a priest due to "moral sinfulness". Later, George Gapon married one of the girls from the orphanage, Maria Uzdaleva. The marriage remained unregistered, as a second marriage was forbidden to Orthodox priests.

[edit] Bloody Sunday incident

Father Gapon organized the Assembly of Russian Factory and Mill Workers of St. Petersburg, which was patronized by the Department of the Police and the St. Petersburg secret police, Okhrana. The Assembly's objectives were to defend workers' rights and to elevate their moral and religious status. Only persons of Russian Orthodox denomination were eligible to join its ranks. Soon the organization had 12 branches and 8,000 members, and Gapon tried to expand activities to Kiev and Moscow. Gapon was not simply an obedient instrument of the police; cooperating with them, he tried to realize his own plans[1] .

From the end of 1904, Gapon started to cooperate with radicals, who had championed the abolition of the Tsar's autocracy.

On January 22 [O.S. January 9] 1905, the day after the general strike burst out in St. Petersburg, Gapon organized a workers' procession to present a petition to the Tsar, which ended tragically (Bloody Sunday 1905)[2]. Gapon’s life was saved by Pinchas Rutenberg, who took Gapon away from gun fire.

Following the Bloody Sunday, Gapon anathematized the Emperor and called upon the workers to take action against the regime, but soon after escaped abroad, where he had close ties with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Gapon and Rutenberg fled abroad, being welcomed in Europe both by prominent Russian emigrants Georgy Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin, Pyotr Kropotkin, and French socialist leaders Jean Jaurès and Georges Clemenceau. He found sanctuary in Geneva[3] and in London at 33 Dunstan House, Stepney, with anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Rudolf Rocker[4] After the October Manifesto, before the end of 1905, Gapon returned to Russia and resumed contact with the Okhrana.

[edit] Suspected as an agent provocateur

Gapon soon revealed to Rutenberg his contacts with the police and tried to recruit him, too, reasoning that double loyalty is helpful to the workers’ cause. However, Rutenberg reported this provocation to his party leaders, Yevno Azef and Boris Savinkov. On March 26, 1906 Gapon arrived to meet Rutenberg in the rented cottage out of St. Petersburg, and after a month he was found there hanged. Rutenberg asserted later that Gapon was condemned by comrades’ court. Actually, three S.R. party combatants overheard their conversation from the next room. After Gapon had repeated his collaboration proposal, Rutenberg called the comrades into the room and left. When he returned, Gapon was dead.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Warren H. Carroll - The Faith in Russian History accessed 22 Jan 2007
  2. ^ Marxist biographies accessed 22 Jan 2007
  3. ^ Spartacus Educational accessed 21 Feb 2007
  4. ^ East London History accessed 23 Jan 2007.