Муравьев-Апостол

The

MOURAVIEFF-APOSTOL

Descendancy

c. 1800 – 1886

• Matvei Artamonovitch Муравьев + Helene Petrovna Апостол

  • Ivan Matveiovitch + Anna Simenovna Tchernoevitch

    • Matvei Ivanovitch *

    • Sergei Ivanovitch *

    • Ippolite Ivanovitch *

    • Katerina Ivanovna

    • Elizabeth Ivanovna

    • Anna Ivanovna

    • Helene Ivanovna

  * Decembrists – A famous group of revolutionaries who attempted an armed uprising on December 26th 1825 against Czar Nicholas I. In Russian they were known as Dekabristas so named for the month of the uprising. The insurrection was swiftly snuffed out by the Czar’s army and the 5 leaders were executed by hanging on 13th of July 1826. The rest of the conspirators were exiled to Siberia where they remained until 1856. The famous Senate Square in St. Petersburg where the uprising was put down was renamed Decembrist Square in 1925 by the Bolsheviks and in 2008 became Senate Square – its original name before Catherine erected the statue of Peter and called it Peter the Great Square.

Modern era aerial photo of “senate square”

Statue of Czar Peter the Great at the center of Decembrist Square (c 1980)

Late 19th century view of Peter the Great Square

Early 19th century view of Peter the Great Square

The story is not simply one of the Decembrists beginning in 1825. Rather, it is a family tradition spanning centuries in which successive generations grappled with questions of liberty, constitutional government, responsibility, and the rights of the individual.

• Danylo Apostol was not a Decembrist—he lived nearly a century earlier. Yet as a freely elected Hetman of the Cossack Host, he represented the principle that authority derives from the consent of the governed rather than absolute rule. His efforts to defend the traditional rights and privileges of the Ukrainian people make him an early champion of accountable government.
• Ivan Muraviev-Apostol was likewise not a Decembrist, but he was a product of the Enlightenment. Having lived in Paris during the era of the French Revolution and associated with figures such as Lafayette, Franklin, and Jefferson, he absorbed ideas concerning liberty, constitutionalism, and the rights of man. His writings and correspondence reveal a man deeply concerned with political freedom and civic responsibility.
• Sergei, Matvei, and Ippolit Muraviev-Apostol transformed those intellectual ideals into action. They became among the most prominent leaders of the Decembrist Movement, seeking constitutional reform and an end to serfdom within the Russian Empire.

Thus, rather than the family lineage merely being a succession of ancestors, it is a succession of ideals:

Даныло — Liberty through self-government.

Ivan — Liberty through enlightenment and constitutional thought.

Sergei, Matvei, and Ippolit — Liberty through sacrifice and action.

On the 200th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising, Nicholas Mouravieff-Apostol-Korobyine offered these thoughts about the current relevance of the movement:

Click HERE