There is a legend that the Decembrists on Senate Square forced the soldiers to shout: “Long live Konstantin, long live the constitution!”, Explaining that the constitution is the wife of the throne of Konstantin Pavlovich. We checked how true this legend is.

On December 14 (26), 1825 in St. Petersburg there was an attempt by a coup d'etat, which would go down in history under the name “Decembrist uprising”. A formal reason for her was a difficult legal situation when, after the death of the childless emperor Alexander, the throne was to inherit his next most senior brother Konstantin. The latter three years before these events, in writing, notified Alexander of his rejection of the throne, and the emperor secretly approved this decision and transfer of inheritance to the third son of Paul I - Nikolai. However, after the death of Alexander I The Grand Duke Nicholas, along with other senior persons of the state and regiments of the imperial guard, took the oath to Emperor Konstantin. And only after some time, making sure of the unwillingness of the relative to rule, decided to declare himself the emperor. The Senate supported this decision early on the morning of December 14, and in the morning officers, whose purpose was to abolish the autocracy and the abolition of serfdom, brought about 800 soldiers of the Moscow Life Guards of the regiment against future power. Later, parts of the 2nd battalion of the Grenadier Regiment and the sailors of the guards sea crew in the amount of at least 2350 people joined them.

Here's how one of the key episodes of the Mayan Kucheskaya uprising describes in The book "Konstantin Pavlovich" From the series "ZhZL":

“In the square there were random shouts:“ Long live the emperor Konstantin! Long live the constitution! ” The conspirators assured the soldiers and ordinary people that the constitution was the wife of the new emperor. This looked like the truth: everyone knew that the wife of Constantine was a Pole, which means that her name should be non -Russian, non -native, you will break the tongue ... What kind of wit is scalars, unknown, but his joke went down in history. ”

This description of events has become widespread and is found in the works of more than one historian.

To begin with, we note that the introduction of the Constitution was indeed one of the main goals of the Decembrists. And if in Poland, in the homeland of the wife of Konstantin Pavlovich Zhanetta Grudzinskaya, the Basic Law appeared in 1815 thanks to Emperor Alexander, then in the rest of the Russian Empire the power of the monarch was still, in fact, unlimited. The Decembrists offered a variety of options for suppressing this - from moderate project Nikita Muravyov to radical "Russian Truth" Pavel Pestel.

As for the slogan directly “Long live the emperor Konstantin! Long live the Constitution! ”, It definitely sounded. Historians diverge only in the exact formulation: in particular, some write that the exclamation sounded like "For Constantine and the Constitution!"that does not change the meaning of what has been said. It is such an option that was demonstrated in the 2019 film "Union of Salvation".

However, this does not give an answer to the main question for us: did the Decembrists really present the Constitution to the soldiers as the name of the wife of a legal monarch? One of the first printed references of this episode is found in “Notes of Peter Andreevich Karatygin. 1805–1879 ", published by the son of a famous actor a year after the death of the parent. In them, Karatygin, who witnessed the uprising, writes: “So, for example, everyone knows that the soldiers enthusiastic about the rebellion did not positively know the real reason for indignation; Their bosses and leaders, forcing them to shout: "Long live the Constitution!", Assured the soldier that this was the wife of Konstantin Pavlovich. "

But even earlier, in 1869-1870, they came out memories A direct participant in these events, Decembrist Andrei Rosen, in which the following quote is found:

“The truth is that when the exclamations in the crowd were heard," it is better instead of Constantine the Constitution! " And when several people were asked: "Who is this constitution?" - They answered them: "This is the wife of Constantine."

Thus, we have at least two evidence of eyewitnesses confirming the version about the “spouse of Constantine”. However, this episode, however, is called by many historians “apocryphal”, and the description of the details varies among different authors. Therefore, here we cannot put the confident verdict "Pravda".