Alexander Vasiliyevich Kolchak

born November 4, 1874

thirty years ago, the name “Admiral Kolchak” was only mentioned in classrooms, when schoolchildren learned the Bolshevik slogan, “put everything into the fight against Kolchak.” Kolchak’s name was first mentioned in textbooks when the narrative reached 1918; the admiral was successfully dispatched by a firing squad a few pages later.

Today, Kolchak has become something of a cult figure. The film Admiral (starring Konstantin Khabensky) was a box office hit throughout Russia and a television series about him is already in production. Rock singers compete to come up with ever more heart-wrenching songs about his sad fate. It is hard to argue with any of this. He did indeed suffer a truly horrible and tragic fate. It is also hard to resist Khabensky’s marvelous portrayal of Kolchak, despite a script that is riddled with falsehoods and which places its hero into utterly contrived situations. Kolchak is transformed into an icon, a martyr, an innocent victim of the Bolsheviks.

This is not the first time that liberties have been taken with Alexander Vasiliyevich’s memory. As far back as 1921, at the memorial service held for him in Paris by those living in emigration, the bilious and spiteful Ivan Bunin intoned:

The time will come when our children, reflecting back on the shame and horror of our days, will forgive Russia many things because of the fact that, in the end, not only Cain ruled over the darkness of those days, but Abel was also among her sons. The time will come when His name will be inscribed in golden letters, for eternal glory and memory, in the Chronicle of the Russian Land.

In the film Admiral, when Nicholas II appoints Kolchak to head the Black Sea fleet, he gives him an icon depicting the martyr Job (a not very subtle foreshadowing of his future suffering). On top of that, he makes the sign of the cross over the admiral as he walks away. Furthermore, during their entire exchange, the tsar remains sitting on a bench in the park. This, despite the fact that it is well documented that the tsar was an exceptionally polite man, who always stood when speaking with senior servants of the Russian state. Why, in 1916, a transfer from the Baltic to the Black Sea should suggest any association with Job is between the filmmakers and their consciences. Why the tsar remained sitting is easier to explain: the actor Nikolai Burlyayev (who plays Tsar Nicholas II) would have seemed too short standing next to the tall, muscular Khabensky, and one mustn’t insult the tsar, even by contrasting him with the dashing admiral.

The fate of the real Kolchak was infinitely more surprising, varied, and interesting than the story of the two-dimensional man we are currently being asked to admire. He was a heroic and resolute figure—the bravery he demonstrated during grueling polar expeditions are clear testament to this. Kolchak dedicated most of his life to studying the Arctic, an undertaking that lured dozens of daring scholars and sailors from across the Northern hemisphere to their deaths. He took part in the tragic expedition of Baron Toll and managed to return home with most of its members (excepting the Baron), traveling from the Arctic by foot to the mouth of the Lena River. Upon reaching St. Petersburg, in 1903 Kolchak organized a new expedition and set out in search of the missing Baron. The travelers made their way by dogsled and whaling boat, enduring great hardships and, in the end, found the remains of a campsite and journal that, alas, left no doubt that Toll had perished.

His polar expeditions left Kolchak with chronic pneumonia and arthritis, but he collected so much material that it took him many years to go through it all (his findings were only published in the late 1920s). In 1906, the Russian Geographic Society awarded him the Great Gold Medal for “outstanding geographic feats achieved in the face of hardship and danger.”

Had Kolchak died at this point, he would have earned himself a place in textbooks, but in a different chapter—one devoted to those who made major contributions to Russian science. But this is not what fate had in store for him. After the Arctic, Kolchak found himself in the Far East, taking part in the defense of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese war. He was supposed to be on the flagship, the Petropavlovsk, but Kolchak asked to be transferred to another ship. As it turned out, this saved him from dying alongside Admiral Makarov, the renowned artist Vereshchagin, and the entire crew of the flagship when it hit a mine and, within just a few minutes, sank to the bottom of the sea.

Fate seemed to be saving the brave officer for something. Was it Japanese captivity? Time spent in America? A return to Russia, where he was awarded numerous medals? Several more lengthy sea expeditions, another visit to the Arctic, a sea voyage to the Indian Ocean, combat in the Baltic during the First World War? Or was it for 1917, when the revolution found him commanding the Black Sea Fleet?

Many might be surprised to learn his initial reaction to the revolution. When word reached Crimea that Nicholas II had abdicated, the real Kolchak (out of character with the one who so touchingly received the tsar’s benediction in the movie) ordered that a church service and parade be held to celebrate the February revolution, which he saw as the only hope for avoiding defeat in the war. It would be less than a month, however, before he and the revolutionary sailors were on opposite sides.

The Provisional Government sent the admiral on a diplomatic mission to England and the United States, which is where he was when he learned that the Bolsheviks had come to power and that an armistice had been concluded with Germany. He arranged to work for the English and was about to leave for Mesopotamia, where the war was still being fought, but as he was passing through Singapore he received a request from the Russian ambassador to China, asking him to return to Russia.

It was another fateful crossroads. If Kolchak had continued on his way to Mesopotamia, he might have had a military career with Great Britain or even continued his research in the Arctic or Antarctica, perhaps joining an expedition led by Amundsen  or Nansen or some other great Arctic explorer. But the draw of Russia was greater than all those unrealized dreams.

Kolchak traveled to China and from there to Russia, first as a member of the Chinese Eastern Railway’s board of directors, and then as a member of the White government in Omsk. There he was widely respected and great hope was invested in him. In 1918 –  more because of this hope than because of Kolchak’s initiative – a coup was carried out. The local coalition government was dissolved and Kolchak became dictator.

Fate now carried the outstanding scholar and talented military commander onto a course he had never wanted and one that he did not really understand how to navigate. The admiral’s sense of duty did not allow him to refuse the post being offered him, but what was he supposed to do? This was not the Arctic Ocean, but seething, mutinous Russia. Kolchak’s army pressed on and encountered unspeakable hardships and tremendous resistance.

The admiral was completely unable to understand how to deal with the peasants of Siberia and the Urals. For him, the world was very simple: if you supported the White movement you were good, and you should join the army, pay taxes, and carry out the orders of the Supreme Commander. Anything short of this meant that you were for the Reds, and to Kolchak there could be nothing worse. In familiar, polar terms, there are members of the expedition pushing onward no matter what stood in their way, and then there were impediments and dangers that had to be overcome and eliminated. He was now being confronted not with treacherous ice, but with peasants that had just returned from the First World War and who had absolutely no desire to leave their families and return to battle. Kolchak could not reconcile himself to this.

When, in the film Admiral, the wonderful and noble personage portrayed by Khabensky is for some reason forced to order his people to retreat, the audience starts to wonder, “If you’re so great, why is everyone against you?” This is what is so interesting and tragic about the personality and fate of Kolchak. When this bold, noble man, who devoted heart and soul to his country, became a dictator, he turned out not to have much talent for governing or diplomacy. More importantly, he manifested (or at least allowed to be manifested by others) incredible cruelty toward citizens of his own country. The number of those ordered shot, hung, or excoriated by Kolchak’s administration was huge.  The result was predictable: there was an upsurge of resistance and sympathy toward the Reds.

When he fell into the hands of the Reds, Kolchak demonstrated his usual bravery and self-control. He conducted himself with dignity under interrogation and, knowing full well he would not be allowed to live, gave detailed testimony that he knew would remain a part of history.

Legend has it that, as he waited to be shot on the banks of a tributary of the Angara River, the admiral sang, “Shine, shine my star,” before himself giving the firing squad the order to shoot. In the film, Kolchak’s body is lowered into a hole in the ice carved in the shape of a cross. Here we cannot but agree with the director: Kolchak was martyred not only by fate, but by history.

SLOGANEERING: Another top White general, Anton Denikin, wrote of the difficulty of rallying troops to a unified cause, “If I raise the republican flag, I lose half my volunteers, and if I raise the monarchist flag, I lose the other half.” For this reason, the White Army’s slogan was not any specific form of government, but “Great Russia, one and indivisible.” [Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, Indiana University Press, 1997]