Did Kolchak say: “Don’t touch artists, prostitutes and coachmen. They serve any power”?

One of the leaders of the White movement is often credited with the phrase about the political unscrupulousness of representatives of certain professions. We checked whether this attribution is correct.

The statement supposedly belonging to Alexander Kolchak exists in different formulations, and not only the word order or type of verb differs in them, but also the professions mentioned in the quote. In some versions appear priests instead of artists, someone adds on the list of prison guards, someone forgets about coachmen, etc. Be that as it may, the phrase attributed to Admiral Kolchak can be found on sites with collections of aphorisms (for example, “Quotes.info" And "Pearls of Thought"), as well as in publications of various celebrities: from the dancer and rector of the Academy. Vaganova Nikolai Tsiskaridze to TV presenter and public figure Katie Gordon. No less popular quote became common among ordinary users "VKontakte", Facebook*, Twitter and other social networks.

The search for this quote attributed to Kolchak in any authoritative sources was unsuccessful. She is not mentioned in serious historical studies, neither in those dedicated to the admiral in particular, nor in those telling about the events of the Civil War in Russia in general. Judging by the Google Books collection, the use of this statement is completely limited mainly fiction and collections of aphorisms.

The earliest use of the alleged Kolchak quote that we were able to find dates back to the fall of 2014. In an interview with the Ukrainian publication Segodnya, poet Yuri Rybchinsky stated: “I believe that a person of art who goes into politics becomes unfree. But the whole beauty of a man of art is that he is above parties, above politicians, etc. This is his colossal influence on the people he represents. When Alexander Kolchak entered Siberian cities, notices were always posted: “Do not touch artists, coachmen and prostitutes - they serve all authorities equally.”

A few months later, Rybchinsky used an almost identical expression and again mentioned Kolchak. In an interview with Dmitry Gordon in the spring of 2015, the poet, talking about Ukrainian artists who continued to perform in Russia, emphasized: “The artist is not a political figure. Admiral Kolchak was right, who, when entering another city with his army, hung up a notice: “Do not touch artists, coachmen and prostitutes - they are equally needed by any government.”

Later, Gordon himself began to use the quote. Thus, in August 2015, a journalist on the 112 Ukraine TV channel commented on the actions of the Ukrainian singer Irina Bilyk, who visited the “Children's New Wave” song competition in Crimea. “Admiral Kolchak, once occupying another city, said: “Do not touch artists, prostitutes and coachmen. They serve any government.” I believe that we need to start not with the artists, but with the traitors who sit in our Ministry of Defense, in the SBU, in the General Staff, in the presidential administration and in all other places where they continue to work for Russia,” - stated then Gordon.

However, Kolchak’s quote did not immediately become popular among social network users. For example, on VKontakte we discovered It was mentioned only once in the fall of 2015, but since the end of January 2016, public pages with an audience of several thousand subscribers began to spread the expression: "Fat Politics" (January 29), “Events of the day. The look of a patriot" (January 30), “Do Russians want war?” (February 4), etc. Judging by data LJSearch service, a similar picture can be observed in LiveJournal, where the first entries mentioning the admiral’s quote appeared on January 30, 2016.

At the same time, Kolchak’s alleged statement became figure and in publications of Twitter users (before that her used only once - on August 21, 2015, the same day as Gordon on the air of one of the Ukrainian TV channels). In general, according to a similar scenario, the phrase was spread on Facebook*: at the end of the summer of 2015 it was used several times mentioned in posts somehow related to Gordon’s comment, and next winter a quote went on an independent voyage.

Thus, we could not find any reliable evidence that Admiral Kolchak (or any of his subordinates) actually used the phrase “Do not touch artists, prostitutes and coachmen. They serve any power.” Judging by the available data, it became widely known at the beginning of 2016, and it was popularized shortly before that, first by the poet Yuri Rybchinsky, and then by the journalist Dmitry Gordon. We were unable to establish from which source Rybchinsky took information about the origin of this quote.

Update dated July 10, 2023: a quote similar to the one attributed to Kolchak was common until the mid-2010s, but it was associated with another historical figure. So, in November 1999, the leader of the Chaif ​​group Vladimir Shakhrin at a press conference in Kyiv stated: "More Old Man Makhno said: “Don’t touch musicians and prostitutes! They are needed under any government!”

The editors would like to thank “Verified” reader Kirill Poznyak for providing additional materials.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities on Russian territory are prohibited.

Incorrect quote attribution

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