Life and Death of E. N. Drozhzhin

Life and Death of E. N. Drozhzhin

On January 27, 1894, in the hospital of the Voronezh prison, there died of pneumonia a certain Drozhzhin, a former village schoolteacher from Kursk province. His body was thrown into a grave in the prison cemetery, as they throw there the bodies of all criminals who die in prison. And yet this was one of the most holy, pure, and truthful people that one finds in life.

In August 1891, he was called up for military service, but considering all people brothers and recognizing murder and violence as the greatest sin contrary to conscience and the will of God, he refused to be a soldier and carry weapons. Likewise, recognizing as sinful the surrender of his will to the power of other people who might demand of him evil deeds, he also refused to take the oath. The people whose lives are founded on violence and murder first confined him for a year in solitary confinement in Kharkov, then transferred him to the Voronezh disciplinary battalion, where for fifteen months they tormented him with cold, hunger, and solitary confinement. Finally, when from unceasing sufferings and deprivations he developed consumption and was declared unfit for military service, they decided to transfer him to a civil prison where he was to serve another nine years of confinement.

But while transporting him from the battalion to the prison on a severely frosty day, the police servants through their negligence conveyed him without warm clothing, stood for a long time on the street outside the police station, and thereby so chilled him that he developed pneumonia, from which he died twenty-three days later.

The day before his death, Drozhzhin said to the doctor: “I lived, though not long, but I die with the consciousness that I acted according to my convictions, in accordance with my conscience. Of course, others can judge this better. Perhaps… no, I think I am right,” he said affirmatively.

The next day he died.

—E. I. Popov

---

Translator’s Notes:

• Evdokim Nikitich Drozhzhin (1866-1894) became one of the early Tolstoyan martyrs, and his story was widely circulated among conscientious objectors in Russia and Europe.
• E. I. Popov (1864-1938) was a close associate of Tolstoy who gathered documentation about conscientious objectors in Russia. His full account of Drozhzhin’s life, Life and Death of E. N. Drozhzhin (Zhizn’ i smert’ E. N. Drozhzhina), was published by the Free Word Press in England in 1903.
• The “disciplinary battalion” (disciplinarny batalyon) was a military penal unit where disobedient soldiers were sent for punishment. Conditions were harsh, with hard labor, reduced rations, and severe discipline.
• Drozhzhin’s words on his deathbed—“I die with the consciousness that I acted according to my convictions”—became emblematic for the Tolstoyan conscientious objector movement.
• Tolstoy wrote extensively about Drozhzhin and other conscientious objectors, seeing their willingness to suffer for their beliefs as proof that Christian non-resistance could be lived, not just preached. He corresponded with and supported many other objectors, including Škarvan, Peter Olkhovik, and members of the Nazarene sect.
• This reading was censored from the original Circle of Reading because of its sympathetic portrayal of a man who defied the state’s authority over military service.