The Siberian Historical Forum has held Decembrists in Siberia. Decembrists and Society section. The event was attended by lecturers of universities, heads and researchers of museums, and descendants of Decembrist Nikolay Osipovich Mozgalevsky, who served his exile in Minusinsk since 1839.
Elena Mozgalevskaya, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Head of the Museum of Forest: From the Past to the Future (St. Petersburg), said that she learned the story of her family from her father who corresponded with other descendants of the Decembrist: “Later my father visited the house-museum of Nikolay Mozgalevsky in Minusinsk,” says Elena Andreevna. “Then he read the letters and saw the photos that the museum staff managed to preserve.”
Another descendant of Nikolay Mozgalevsky is Alla Bobrova, who lives in Novosibirsk, also keeps in touch with representatives of her large clan. Alla said that she came to the forum not only to tell the story of Nikolay Mozgalevsky’s life, but also to raise the topic of Decembrism in general: “At a certain moment in my life, this topic became interesting to me, I studied the letters and documents of Nikolay Osipovich, which his other descendants managed to preserve. Of course, I believe that more attention should be drawn to the topic of Decembrism, since this is a very important era for Russia. We need to write books, make films, which are few now. It is very good that there are events such as the Siberian Historical Forum that help like-minded people gather, raise important topics and preserve the memory for future generations.”
The section was also attended by researcher of the Minusinsk Regional Museum of Local Lore Valentina Ermilova who said that the house-museum of Nikolay Mozgalevsky was not the only historical monument of that time in Minusinsk: “Before the beginning of the 21st century, we knew only two Decembrists’ houses in Minusinsk: those of the brothers Nikolay and Alexander Kryukov and of Nikolay Mozgalevsky. These houses have memorial plaques installed in 1968. As a result of archival research in 2001, it was possible to establish the location of the house of another Decembrist – Ivan Kireev, that must also be recognized as a historical monument of the first third of the 19th century.
The theme of Decembrism at the Siberian Historical Forum today was brought by another section Museums of the Decembrists in the Cultural Space of Siberia.