May 27, 1865 - July 17, 1918
Russian doctor, personal physician of the family of Nicholas II, nobleman
Biography
Childhood and studies
He was the fourth child in the family of the famous Russian doctor Sergei Botkin (life physician of Alexander II and Alexander III) and Anastasia Alexandrovna Krylova.
In 1878, on the basis of the education received at home, he was immediately admitted to the 5th grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1882, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, however, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he left for the junior department of the opened preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy.
In 1889 he graduated from the academy third in graduation, having received the title of doctor with honors.
Work and career
From January 1890 he worked as an assistant doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. In December 1890, at his own expense, he was sent abroad for scientific purposes. He studied with leading European scientists, got acquainted with the organization of Berlin hospitals.
At the end of the business trip in May 1892, Evgeny Sergeevich became a doctor in the court choir, and from January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky hospital as a supernumerary intern.
On May 8, 1893, he defended his dissertation at the Academy for the degree of Doctor of Medicine “On the question of the influence of albumose and peptones on some functions of the animal body”, dedicated to his father. I. P. Pavlov was the official opponent on defense.
In the spring of 1895, he was sent abroad and spent two years in medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin, where he listened to lectures and practiced with leading German doctors - professors G. Munch, B. Frenkel, P. Ernst and others. In May 1897 he was elected Privatdozent of the Military Medical Academy.
In 1904, with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, he volunteered for the active army and was appointed head of the medical unit of the Russian Red Cross Society (ROKK) in the Manchurian army. "For the differences rendered in cases against the Japanese" was awarded officer military orders - orders of St. Vladimir III and II degree with swords, St. Anna II degree, St. Stanislav III degree, Serbian Order of St. Sava II degree and Bulgarian - "For civic merit.
In the autumn of 1905, Evgeny Botkin returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907 he was appointed chief physician of the community of St. George.
At the request of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, he was invited as a doctor to the royal family and in April 1908 he was appointed medical officer of Nicholas II. He remained in this position until his death.
He was also an advisory member of the Military Medical Scientific Committee at the Imperial Headquarters, a member of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society. He had the rank of real state councilor.
Link and death
In 1917, after the fall of the monarchy on March 2 (15), he stayed with the royal family in Tsarskoe Selo, and then followed her into exile. In Tobolsk, he opened a free medical practice for local residents. In April 1918, together with the royal couple and their daughter Maria, he was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg.
He was shot along with the entire imperial family in Yekaterinburg in the Ipatiev House on the night of July 16-17, 1918.
According to the memoirs of a former Austrian prisoner of war who went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, I. L. Meyer, published in the magazine "7 TAGE" on July 14-25, 1956, the revolutionary headquarters offered Botkin freedom and work in Moscow, who, realizing that he would die along with the royal family, but refused. However, Meyer's Memoirs themselves are most likely a falsification.
Canonization and rehabilitation
He was canonized by ROCOR in 1981, along with others shot in the Ipatiev house - both the Romanovs and their servants. The decision of the ROC was different. The canonization commission, headed by Metropolitan Yuvenaly, considering the issue of canonization of the royal family, noted that:
On October 30, 2009, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate 52 people from the entourage of Emperor Nicholas II and his family who were subjected to repression after the revolution. Evgeny Botkin was among those rehabilitated.
Family
Yevgeny Botkin had four children: Yuri, Dmitry, Gleb and Tatyana. In 1910, Botkin divorced his wife (Olga Vladimirovna).
Son Dmitry - a cornet of the Life Guards of the Cossack regiment - died in the First World War (December 3, 1914, he covered the retreat of the reconnaissance Cossack patrol). He was posthumously awarded the St. George Cross IV degree.
After the revolution, Tatyana and Gleb Botkin followed their father into exile in Tobolsk, but the authorities did not let them into Yekaterinburg. After the defeat of the whites, Tatyana and Gleb went into exile. Abroad, Tatyana Botkina (married Melnik) wrote “Memoirs of the Royal Family”, where she also mentioned her father. Gleb Botkin also left memoirs.
Currently, Botkin's grandson, Konstantin Konstantinovich Melnik-Botkin (the son of Tatyana Botkina and Konstantin Melnik - they had three children in total), lives in France, who coordinated the activities of the French special services in the 1960s.
Proceedings
- "On the question of the influence of albumose and peptones on some functions of the animal organism"
- "Light and shadows of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905: From letters to his wife" 1908.
Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was born on June 9 (May 27, old style) 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg province, in the family of a famous Russian general practitioner, professor of the Medico-Surgical Academy, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. He came from the merchant dynasty of the Botkins, whose representatives were distinguished by deep Orthodox faith and charity, helped the Orthodox Church not only with their means, but also with their labors. Thanks to a reasonably organized system of upbringing in the family and the wise guardianship of parents, many virtues were laid in the heart of Eugene from childhood, including generosity, modesty and rejection of violence. His brother Pyotr Sergeevich recalled: “He was infinitely kind. One could say that he came into the world for the sake of people and in order to sacrifice himself.
Eugene received a thorough home education, which in 1878 allowed him to immediately enter the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. In 1882, Evgeny graduated from the gymnasium and became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University. However, the very next year, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he entered the junior department of the opened preparatory course of the Imperial Military Medical Academy. From the very beginning, his choice of the medical profession was conscious and purposeful. Pyotr Botkin wrote about Evgeny: “He chose medicine as his profession. This corresponded to his vocation: to help, support in a difficult moment, relieve pain, heal without end. In 1889, Eugene successfully graduated from the academy, receiving the title of doctor with honors, and from January 1890 began his career at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.
At the age of 25, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin married the daughter of a hereditary nobleman, Olga Vladimirovna Manuylova. Four children grew up in the Botkin family: Dmitry (1894-1914), Georgy (1895-1941), Tatyana (1898-1986), Gleb (1900-1969).
Simultaneously with his work in the hospital, E. S. Botkin was engaged in science, he was interested in questions of immunology, the essence of the process of leukocytosis. In 1893, E. S. Botkin brilliantly defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. After 2 years, Evgeny Sergeevich was sent abroad, where he practiced at medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1897, E. S. Botkin was awarded the title of Privatdozent in Internal Medicine with a clinic. At his first lecture, he told students about the most important thing in a doctor's work: "Let's all go with love to a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him." Evgeny Sergeevich considered the service of a physician to be a truly Christian deed, he had a religious view of illnesses, saw their connection with the state of mind of a person. In one of his letters to his son George, he expressed his attitude to the medical profession as a means of knowing God's wisdom: “The main delight that you experience in our work ... is that for this we must penetrate deeper and deeper into the details and the secrets of God's creations, and it is impossible not to enjoy their expediency and harmony and His highest wisdom.
Since 1897, E. S. Botkin began his medical practice in the communities of sisters of mercy of the Russian Red Cross Society. On November 19, 1897, he became a doctor in the Holy Trinity Community of Sisters of Mercy, and from January 1, 1899, he also became the chief physician of the St. Petersburg Community of Sisters of Mercy in honor of St. George. The main patients of the community of St. George were people from the poorest strata of society, but doctors and attendants were selected in it with special care. Some women of the upper class worked there as simple nurses on a general basis and considered this occupation an honor for themselves. Such enthusiasm reigned among the employees, such a desire to help suffering people that the people of St. George were sometimes compared with the early Christian community. The fact that Yevgeny Sergeevich was accepted to work in this “exemplary institution” testified not only to his increased authority as a doctor, but also to his Christian virtues and respectable life. The position of the chief physician of the community could only be entrusted to a highly moral and believing person.
In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, and Evgeny Sergeevich, leaving his wife and four small children (the eldest was ten years old at that time, the youngest four years old), volunteered to go to the Far East. On February 2, 1904, by a decree of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society, he was appointed assistant to the Commissioner-in-Chief for the active armies for the medical unit. Occupying this rather high administrative position, Dr. Botkin was often at the forefront. During the war, Evgeny Sergeevich not only showed himself to be an excellent doctor, but also showed personal courage and courage. He wrote many letters from the front, from which a whole book was compiled - “Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.” This book was soon published, and many, having read it, discovered new sides of the St. Petersburg doctor: his Christian, loving , an infinitely compassionate heart and an unshakable faith in God. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, after reading Botkin's book, wished that Evgeny Sergeevich became the personal doctor of the Royal Family. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1908, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree appointing Dr. Botkin as a medical officer of the Imperial Court.
Now, after the new appointment, Evgeny Sergeevich had to constantly be with the emperor and members of his family, his service at the royal court proceeded without days off and holidays. The high position and closeness to the Royal family did not change the character of E. S. Botkin. He remained as kind and considerate to others as he had been before.
When the First World War began, Evgeny Sergeevich asked the sovereign to send him to the front to reorganize the sanitary service. However, the emperor instructed him to stay with the empress and the children in Tsarskoe Selo, where infirmaries began to open through their efforts. At his home in Tsarskoye Selo, Evgeny Sergeevich also set up an infirmary for the slightly wounded, which the Empress and her daughters visited.
In February 1917, a revolution took place in Russia. On March 2, the sovereign signed the Manifesto on abdication. The royal family was arrested and taken into custody in the Alexander Palace. Yevgeny Sergeevich did not leave his royal patients: he voluntarily decided to stay with them, despite the fact that his position was abolished and his salary was stopped. At this time, Botkin became more than a friend for the royal prisoners: he took upon himself the duty of mediating between the imperial family and the commissars, interceding for all their needs.
When it was decided to move the royal family to Tobolsk, Dr. Botkin was among the few close associates who voluntarily followed the sovereign into exile. Dr. Botkin's letters from Tobolsk are striking in their truly Christian mood: not a word of grumbling, condemnation, discontent or resentment, but complacency and even joy. The source of this complacency was a firm faith in the all-good Providence of God: "Only prayer and ardent boundless hope in the mercy of God, unfailingly poured out on us by our Heavenly Father, support us." At this time, he continued to fulfill his duties: he treated not only members of the Royal family, but also ordinary citizens. A scientist who for many years communicated with the scientific, medical, and administrative elite of Russia, he humbly served, like a zemstvo or city doctor, ordinary peasants, soldiers, and workers.
In April 1918, Dr. Botkin volunteered to accompany the royal couple to Yekaterinburg, leaving his own children in Tobolsk, whom he loved passionately and tenderly. In Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks again invited the servants to leave the arrested, but everyone refused. Chekist I. Rodzinsky reported: “In general, at one time after the transfer to Yekaterinburg, there was an idea to separate them all from them, in particular, even the daughters were offered to leave. But everyone refused. Botkin was offered. He stated that he wanted to share the fate of the family. And he refused."
On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the royal family, their entourage, including Dr. Botkin, were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house.
A few years before his death, Evgeny Sergeevich received the title of hereditary nobleman. For his coat of arms, he chose the motto: "By faith, fidelity, work." In these words, as it were, all the life ideals and aspirations of Dr. Botkin were concentrated. Deep inner piety, most importantly - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unshakable devotion to the Royal family and fidelity to God and His commandments in all circumstances, fidelity to death. The Lord accepts such fidelity as a pure sacrifice and gives for it the highest, heavenly reward: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
The Life Physician of the Tsar-Passion-Bearer Nicholas II and his family Evgeny Botkin glorified as a saint by the Council of Bishops of the Russian Church.
The glorification took place at a meeting of the Council, which took place on February 2-3 in the capital's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Patriarchy.ru website reports.
According to the definition of the Council, the life physician Yevgeny Botkin is glorified as a righteous passion-bearer (Memorial Day - July 4/17).
Reference
Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was born on May 27 (June 8), 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo in the family of a famous Russian doctor, life physician of Emperors Alexander II and Alexander III, Sergei Botkin and Anastasia Krylova.
At the age of 13, thanks to the upbringing he received at home, he was immediately admitted to the 5th grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium, from where in 1882 he entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of St. Petersburg University. True, then, having passed the exams, he switched to the newly opened preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy, which he graduated in 1889 with the title of doctor with honors.
Initially, Evgeny Botkin worked as an assistant doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor, but already at the end of 1890 he went on a business trip abroad for further education. In particular, he got acquainted in Berlin (Germany) with the organization of local hospitals.
From 1892 to 1894, Evgeny Botkin first worked as a doctor in the court chapel, and then returned to the Mariinsky Hospital as a supernumerary intern. On May 8, 1893, he defended his dissertation at the Military Medical Academy for the degree of Doctor of Medicine, which he dedicated to his father. In the spring of 1895, the physician again went abroad, where he studied and practiced with leading German doctors for another two years.
With the outbreak of the Russian-Japanese War (1904-1905), Evgeny Botkin volunteered for the front, where he served as head of the medical unit of the Russian Red Cross Society in the Manchurian army. Under the conditions of the war, the physician proved to be a real professional, for which he was awarded a number of awards: the Order of St. Vladimir III and II degrees with swords, St. Anna II degree, St. Stanislav III degree. He was also awarded foreign orders - Serbian - St. Sava II degree and Bulgarian - "For Civil Merit".
In 1905, Evgeny Botkin received the title of honorary life doctor, in the fall of the same year he began teaching at the academy. In 1907, the doctor became the chief physician of the community of St. George.
Evgeny Botkin was invited to the royal family in 1908 by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, where from April of that year he began working as a life physician to Tsar Nicholas II.
After the events of 1917, Evgeny Botkin remained to serve the sovereign and his family, first being arrested in Tsarskoye Selo, and then going into exile.
Staying temporarily in Tobolsk, he treated local residents for free. In April 1918, together with the royal family, he went to Yekaterinburg, and he did it of his own free will.
On the night of July 16-17, 1918, Evgeny Botkin was shot in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, along with the royal family and three servants who also followed her.
In 1981, he was canonized along with others shot in Yekaterinburg by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
On October 16, 2009, Evgeny Botkin was rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia along with 51 close associates of the royal family who were repressed by the Bolsheviks.
The Russian Orthodox Church canonized Yevgeny Botkin, a doctor who did not leave the emperor at his death hour and was shot along with him and his family in Yekaterinburg. The biography of the new ascetic is recalled by the Russian Planet.
Emperor's family
Despite the fact that the Botkin dynasty faithfully served two Russian emperors at once - Alexander II and Alexander III, Evgeny Botkin received the position of a life physician (court physician) not because of the achievements of his eminent ancestors (his father was the famous doctor Sergei Petrovich Botkin, after whom one of the central hospitals in Moscow is named). When in 1907 the position of the chief physician of the imperial family was vacated, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna said that she wanted to see Botkin in this capacity. When she was told that there were two doctors in St. Petersburg with that name, she added: “The one who was in the war!”
Botkin went to war as a volunteer. By that time, he had achieved good success in his medical career, was married and had four children. During the Russo-Japanese War, he coordinated the work of medical units under the Russian army. The position is administrative, but Botkin, despite this, preferred to spend more time on the front line and was not afraid, in which case, to play the role of a company paramedic, helping soldiers right on the battlefield.
For his work, he was awarded officer military orders, and after the end of the war he wrote the book Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War. This book led Botkin to the post of medical officer of the imperial family. After reading it, Alexandra Feodorovna did not want to see anyone but him as an imperial doctor.
The Empress chose Yevgeny Botkin for another reason - the illness of Tsarevich Alexei. As a doctor, Botkin studied immunology, as well as the properties of blood. To monitor the health of the young crown prince, who was ill with hemophilia, became one of his main duties at the imperial court.
There was a downside to being able to hold such a high position. Now Botkin had to constantly be close to the imperial family, to work without days off and holidays. Botkin's wife, carried away by a young revolutionary 20 years younger than her, left Yevgeny Sergeevich with a broken heart. Botkin was saved only by love and support from his children, and also by the fact that over time the imperial family became not a stranger to him. Botkin treated his august patients with sincere love and attention, he could not leave the bedside of the sick prince at night. To which young Alexei would later write to him in a letter: “I love you with all my little heart.”
“Botkin was known for his restraint. None of the retinue managed to find out from him what the empress was sick with and what treatment the queen and heir followed. He was, of course, a servant devoted to their majesties, ”said General Mosolov, head of the office of the Ministry of the Imperial Court, about Botkin.
Last way
When the revolution happened and the imperial family was arrested, all the servants and assistants of the sovereign had a choice: to stay or leave. Many betrayed the Tsar, but Botkin did not leave the patients even when it was decided to send Nicholas II with his whole family to Tobolsk, and then to Yekaterinburg.
Even before the execution, Yevgeny Botkin had the opportunity to leave and choose a new job. But he did not leave those to whom he managed to become attached with all his heart. After the last proposal made to him to leave the emperor, he already knew that the king would soon be killed.
“You see, I gave the king my word of honor to stay with him as long as he lives. It is impossible for a man of my position not to keep such a word. I also cannot leave an heir alone. How can I reconcile this with my conscience? You all must understand this, ”Johann Meyer, a former captive Austrian soldier who defected to the Bolsheviks, quotes him in his memoirs.
In his letters, Botkin wrote: “In general, if “faith without deeds is dead,” then “deeds” without faith can exist, and if one of us joins deeds with faith, then this is only by the special grace of God to him. This also justifies my last decision, when I did not hesitate to leave my children as complete orphans in order to fulfill my medical duty to the end, just as Abraham did not hesitate at the request of God to sacrifice his only son to him.
In the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks read out to the emperor and his entire family the decision of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies. The sentence was carried out immediately - together with the royal family, the life physician Botkin, the life cook Kharitonov, the valet and the room girl were also shot.
The first shots were fired at Nicholas II. Two bullets that flew past the main target, Botkin was wounded in the stomach. After the assassination of the tsar, the Bolsheviks finished off their victims. Commandant Yurovsky, who oversaw the execution, later indicated that Botkin was still alive for some time. “I finished him off with a shot in the head,” Yurovsky later wrote. The remains of the doctor of the last Russian emperor were subsequently never found - only his pince-nez was found among other material evidence in a pit in the vicinity of Yekaterinburg, where the bodies of the dead were dumped.
The turmoil that engulfed Russia after the 1917 revolution did not just lead to the fall of the monarchy and the destruction of the empire. In Russia, all state institutions collapsed overnight, and all the moral principles of the individual for each individual seemed to have ceased to operate. Evgeny Botkin was one of the few evidences that even in an era of general insanity, revelry and permissiveness, one can remain a man true to his word, honor and duty.
Evgeny Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoe Selo, in the family of an outstanding Russian scientist and doctor, the founder of the experimental direction in medicine, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. His father was a court physician to Emperors Alexander II and Alexander III.
As a child, he received an excellent education and was immediately admitted to the fifth grade of the St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, but after the first year he decided to become a doctor and entered the preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy.
Evgeny Botkin's medical career began in January 1890 as an assistant doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. A year later, he went abroad for scientific purposes, studied with leading European scientists, got acquainted with the organization of Berlin hospitals. In May 1892, Evgeny Sergeevich became a doctor at the Court Chapel, and from January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky Hospital. At the same time, he continued his scientific activity: he was engaged in immunology, studied the essence of the process of leukocytosis and the protective properties of blood cells.
In 1893 he brilliantly defended his dissertation. The official opponent on the defense was the physiologist and the first Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov.
With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904), Evgeny Botkin volunteered for the active army and became head of the medical unit of the Russian Red Cross Society in the Manchurian army. According to eyewitnesses, despite his administrative position, he spent a lot of time on the front lines. For distinction in work he was awarded many orders, including military officer orders.
In the autumn of 1905, Evgeny Sergeevich returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907 he was appointed chief physician of the community of St. George in the capital. In 1907, after the death of Gustav Hirsch, the royal family was left without a medical doctor. The candidacy of the new life physician was named by the empress herself, who, when asked who she would like to see in this position, answered: “Botkin”. When she was told that now two Botkins are equally known in St. Petersburg, she said: “The one that was in the war!”.
Botkin was three years older than his august patient, Nicholas II. The duty of the life physician included the treatment of all members of the royal family, which he carefully and scrupulously performed. It was necessary to examine and treat the emperor, who had good health, the grand duchesses, who suffered from various childhood infections. But the main object of Yevgeny Sergeevich's efforts was Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.
After the February coup in 1917, the imperial family was imprisoned in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. All servants and assistants were asked to leave the prisoners at will. But Dr. Botkin stayed with the patients. He did not want to leave them and when it was decided to send the royal family to Tobolsk. In Tobolsk, he opened a free medical practice for local residents. In April 1918, together with the royal couple and their daughter Maria, Dr. Botkin was transported from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg. At that moment there was still an opportunity to leave the royal family, but the doctor did not leave them.
Johann Meyer, an Austrian soldier who fell into Russian captivity during the First World War and defected to the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, wrote his memoirs “How the Imperial Family Perished”. In the book, he reports on the proposal made by the Bolsheviks to Dr. Botkin to leave the royal family and choose a place of work, for example, somewhere in a Moscow clinic. Thus, one of all the prisoners of the special purpose house knew exactly about the imminent execution. He knew and, having the opportunity to choose, he preferred to salvation loyalty to the oath given once to the king. This is how Meyer describes it: “You see, I gave the king my word of honor to remain with him as long as he lives. It is impossible for a man of my position not to keep such a word. I also cannot leave an heir alone. How can I reconcile this with my conscience? You all need to understand this."
Dr. Botkin was killed along with the entire imperial family in Yekaterinburg in the Ipatiev House on the night of July 16-17, 1918.
In 1981, together with others shot in the Ipatiev House, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
PASSION BEARER EVGENY VRACH (BOTKIN) - life and icon
Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo, St. Petersburg province, in the family of a famous Russian general practitioner, professor of the Medical and Surgical Academy, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. He came from the merchant dynasty of the Botkins, whose representatives were distinguished by deep Orthodox faith and charity, helped the Orthodox Church kwi not only with their own means, but also with their labors. Thanks to a reasonably organized system of upbringing in the family and the wise guardianship of parents, many virtues were laid in the heart of Eugene from childhood, including generosity, modesty and rejection of violence. His brother Pyotr Sergeevich recalled: “He was infinitely kind. One could say that he came into the world for the sake of people and in order to sacrifice himself.
Eugene received a thorough home education, which in 1878 allowed him to immediately enter the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg classical gymnasium. In 1882, Evgeny graduated from the gymnasium and became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at St. Petersburg University. However, the very next year, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he entered the junior department of the opened preparatory course of the Imperial Military Medical Academy. From the very beginning, his choice of the medical profession was conscious and purposeful. Pyotr Botkin wrote about Evgeny: “He chose medicine as his profession. This corresponded to his vocation: to help, support in a difficult moment, relieve pain, heal without end. In 1889, Eugene successfully graduated from the academy, receiving the title of doctor with honors, and from January 1890 began his career at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.
At the age of 25, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin married the daughter of a hereditary nobleman, Olga Vladimirovna Manuylova. Four children grew up in the Botkin family: Dmitry (1894–1914), Georgy (1895–1941), Tatyana (1898–1986), Gleb (1900–1969).
Simultaneously with his work in the hospital, E. S. Botkin was engaged in science, he was interested in questions of immunology, the essence of the process of leukocytosis. In 1893, E. S. Botkin brilliantly defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine. After 2 years, Evgeny Sergeevich was sent abroad, where he practiced at medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1897, E. S. Botkin was awarded the title of Privatdozent in Internal Medicine with a clinic. At his first lecture, he told students about the most important thing in a doctor's work: "Let's all go with love to a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him." Evgeny Sergeevich considered the service of a physician to be a truly Christian deed, he had a religious view of illnesses, saw their connection with the state of mind of a person. In one of his letters to his son George, he expressed his attitude to the medical profession as a means of knowing God's wisdom: “The main delight that you experience in our work ... is that for this we must penetrate deeper and deeper into the details and the secrets of God's creations, and it is impossible not to enjoy their expediency and harmony and His highest wisdom.
Since 1897, E. S. Botkin began his medical practice in the communities of sisters of mercy of the Russian Red Cross Society. On November 19, 1897, he became a doctor in the Holy Trinity Community of Sisters of Mercy, and from January 1, 1899, he also became the chief physician of the St. Petersburg Community of Sisters of Mercy in honor of St. George. The main patients of the community of St. George were people from the poorest strata of society, but doctors and attendants were selected in it with special care. Some women of the upper class worked there as simple nurses on a general basis and considered this occupation an honor for themselves. Such enthusiasm reigned among the employees, such a desire to help suffering people that the people of St. George were sometimes compared with the early Christian community. The fact that Yevgeny Sergeevich was accepted to work in this “exemplary institution” testified not only to his increased authority as a doctor, but also to his Christian virtues and respectable life. The position of the chief physician of the community could only be entrusted to a highly moral and believing person.
In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War began, and Evgeny Sergeevich, leaving his wife and four small children (the eldest was ten years old at that time, the youngest four years old), volunteered to go to the Far East. On February 2, 1904, by a decree of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society, he was appointed assistant to the Commissioner-in-Chief for the active armies for the medical unit. Occupying this rather high administrative position, Dr. Botkin was often at the forefront. During the war, Evgeny Sergeevich not only showed himself to be an excellent doctor, but also showed personal courage and courage. He wrote many letters from the front, from which a whole book was compiled - “Light and Shadows of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905.” This book was soon published, and many, having read it, discovered new sides of the St. Petersburg doctor: his Christian, loving , an infinitely compassionate heart and an unshakable faith in God. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, after reading Botkin's book, wished that Evgeny Sergeevich became the personal doctor of the Royal Family. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1908, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree appointing Dr. Botkin as a medical officer of the Imperial Court.
Now, after the new appointment, Evgeny Sergeevich had to constantly be with the emperor and members of his family, his service at the royal court proceeded without days off and holidays. The high position and closeness to the Royal family did not change the character of E. S. Botkin. He remained as kind and considerate to others as he had been before.
When the First World War began, Evgeny Sergeevich asked the sovereign to send him to the front to reorganize the sanitary service. However, the emperor instructed him to stay with the empress and the children in Tsarskoe Selo, where infirmaries began to open through their efforts. At his home in Tsarskoye Selo, Evgeny Sergeevich also set up an infirmary for the slightly wounded, which the Empress and her daughters visited.
In February 1917, a revolution took place in Russia. On March 2, the sovereign signed the Manifesto on abdication. The royal family was arrested and taken into custody in the Alexander Palace. Yevgeny Sergeevich did not leave his royal patients: he voluntarily decided to stay with them, despite the fact that his position was abolished and his salary was stopped. At this time, Botkin became more than a friend for the royal prisoners: he took upon himself the duty of mediating between the imperial family and the commissars, interceding for all their needs.
When it was decided to move the royal family to Tobolsk, Dr. Botkin was among the few close associates who voluntarily followed the sovereign into exile. Dr. Botkin's letters from Tobolsk are striking in their truly Christian mood: not a word of grumbling, condemnation, discontent or resentment, but complacency and even joy. The source of this complacency was a firm faith in the all-good Providence of God: "Only prayer and ardent boundless hope in the mercy of God, unfailingly poured out on us by our Heavenly Father, support us." At this time, he continued to fulfill his duties: he treated not only members of the Royal family, but also ordinary citizens. A scientist who for many years communicated with the scientific, medical, and administrative elite of Russia, he humbly served, like a zemstvo or city doctor, ordinary peasants, soldiers, and workers.
In April 1918, Dr. Botkin volunteered to accompany the royal couple to Yekaterinburg, leaving his own children in Tobolsk, whom he loved passionately and tenderly. In Yekaterinburg, the Bolsheviks again invited the servants to leave the arrested, but everyone refused. Chekist I. Rodzinsky reported: “In general, at one time after the transfer to Yekaterinburg, there was an idea to separate them all from them, in particular, even the daughters were offered to leave. But everyone refused. Botkin was offered. He stated that he wanted to share the fate of the family. And he refused."
On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the royal family, their entourage, including Dr. Botkin, were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house.
A few years before his death, Evgeny Sergeevich received the title of hereditary nobleman. For his coat of arms, he chose the motto: "By faith, fidelity, work." In these words, as it were, all the life ideals and aspirations of Dr. Botkin were concentrated. Deep inner piety, most importantly - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unshakable devotion to the Royal family and fidelity to God and His commandments in all circumstances, fidelity to death. The Lord accepts such fidelity as a pure sacrifice and gives for it the highest, heavenly reward: Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
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