According to information spread online, the famous revolutionary and popularizer of science, at the age of 87, stood up to defend the fatherland and even destroyed about a dozen enemy soldiers. We checked whether this was really the case.

“Arguments and Facts” also wrote about Morozov’s military exploits (article “Grandfather is a sniper. The oldest participant in the Great Patriotic War was 88 years old.”), and "Moskovsky Komsomolets" (“87-year-old academic sniper killed a dozen Germans”), And Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. And in 2020, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Victory, a mini-series was released on the NTV channel "Father Frost" with Aristarkh Livanov in the title role.

On the website of the Ural Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, this episode from the life of Morozov is described as follows:

“In 1939, at the age of 85, he graduated from Osoaviakhim sniper courses. Therefore, upon arriving at the front, he showed excellent preparation. On the very first day he killed a German officer. Then another and another... The academician became a real legend of the Volkhov Front. When the Nazis declared a hunt for him, he was recalled to the rear by personal order from Stalin. “They don’t take risks with people like that!” - said the leader. For military services, Morozov was awarded the Order of Lenin and the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad.”

Other sources claim, that the honorary academician achieved impressive shooting accuracy by “studying the trajectory of the bullet, especially in wet conditions.” It is also noted that after being forced to return to the rear, Morozov “blustered for several more months, demanding to be sent back to fight on the front line as a simple sniper, but then he cooled down.”

The life story of Nikolai Morozov is so colorful and varied that it would be enough for several seasons of a television series. Participation in the Tchaikovsky circles, “Land and Freedom” and “Narodnaya Volya”, more than 28 years in prison (of which a quarter of a century in a row), numerous experiments in literature and several natural sciences, experimental flights in a balloon and airplane, work as a military correspondent. And this was only before the revolution, after which Morozov managed to be the director of the institute, an honorary academician, and twice a holder of the Order of Lenin. And also create a number of works on historical topics, which ultimately became the basis for the emergence of the infamous new chronology. After all this bouquet of events, the authenticity of which is beyond doubt, the presence of one more stroke in Morozov’s 92-year-old life does not seem so surprising.

However, the very first results of studying Morozov’s biography from Soviet publications give rise to doubts. Thus, the 1981 publication of the USSR Academy of Sciences includes two reviews of the scientist’s life: chronological and more detailed. In chronological order, we can read about Morozov’s presence at the front during the First World War and... not a word about his service in the Great Patriotic War:

The second review reports only on Morozov's letter dated January 14, 1944, in which he complains that the war has caused irreparable damage to his work. And he adds that in recent years he has been “immersed head over heels in geophysical considerations.”

There is not a word about the war in Vladimir Ozerov’s biographical book “N. A. Morozov" (1966). Morozov and V. Prishchepenko are silent about the front-line feat in their article “Through Hardships to the Stars,” published in 1978 at Moscow State University. Nowadays, on the revolutionary’s memorial website you can also read about network version this article. And discover that the following paragraph appeared in the article:

“At the age of 88, in the spring of 1942, Morozov went to the Volkhov Front for several days. Eyewitnesses later said that he personally shot several fascist bandits like rabid dogs. Nikolai Aleksandrovich shot from a long-range rifle with a telescopic sight, improved by himself, and from large-caliber revolvers, which to this day are stored in the fireproof safe of the N. A. Morozov House-Museum. He mastered personal weapons excellently, for he learned to shoot from early childhood, and in his youth he “hunted” Alexander II. In 1939 (!) Nikolai Alexandrovich graduated with honors from... Osoaviakhim sniper courses.”

Why such a significant fact from Morozov’s biography was not disclosed during the Soviet years, when the veneration of the heroes of the Second World War was widespread, one can only guess. It is also unknown whether the person who did this in the online version had the authority to edit Prishchepenko’s article. It is interesting that on the same memorial site there is another chronicle of life Nikolai Morozov, and in it, contrary to the quote from the classic, there was again no place for feat.

As for the post-Soviet period, we can highlight one book and two publications in periodicals. In 1996, Evgeniy Vostokov’s book “Memorable Meetings” was published in Ryazan, in which there is a quote: “At the age of 88, he volunteered for the Volkhov Front and, according to eyewitnesses, took part in the hostilities.” But article Stanislav Sergeev in Izvestia dated June 2, 2007 can rightfully be considered the starting point in the military “Morozovian” of our time. This is one of the first, if not the first dated mention of the episode of interest to us in publications with a high circulation. Deserves special attention article Nikolai Sotnikov entitled “Lomonosov of the Very Recent Years”, published in the magazine “History of St. Petersburg” in 2012. It generally states that Nikolai Morozov came to the Volkhov Front to give a lecture, but then asked to be taken to the front line, where he “snatched some strange, huge pistol with an optical sight from his bosom and killed several Krauts on the spot.” Moreover, it was “the same pistol that he, a Narodnaya Volya member, intended first for Alexander II, and then for Alexander III.” The author further claims that Alexander was a distant relative of Morozov and fiercely hated Nicholas for campaigning “against his own.”

As you can see, the story about Morozov’s military feat appeared quite recently. But there are other contradictions. In particular, it is known that in the first half of the 1940s N. A. Morozov lived constantly in the Borok estate in the Yaroslavl region (this is stated in the note dedicated to his 90th birthday in 1944). And here are Morozov’s own words from a letter to the Chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, Pyotr Popkov:

“For two years of the war, with the permission of the People’s Commissar of Education, I have been on a long scientific trip to the Research Hospital of the Borok Academy of Sciences, Yaroslavl Region, where I continue my scientific studies in astronomy and geophysics, with the exception of the winter of 1941–1942, spent due to ill health in the Kremlin hospital. I submitted a report on scientific work for 1943 in a timely manner back in November 1943.”

There is no reason to believe that the rather elderly Morozov, who in addition had health problems (he underwent surgery in the winter of 1942), contrary to sources and his own words, went to fight at the front. Anatoly Shikman, the modern biographer of Morozov, did not find any other information about this.

And finally, let’s touch on the issue of awards. On the “Feat of the People” website, a database of WWII participants and their awards, there are no people born in 1854. And the reason is definitely not due to the non-conscription age, since in the same database you can find 14 people born in 1870, that is, by the beginning of the war they were already over 70. And the only one The winner of the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” with the following full name was born in 1909.

Thus, the story that Nikolai Morozov was the oldest participant in the Great Patriotic War is, with a high degree of probability, a myth that appeared several decades after its end.