Ecology of life. People: Deep inner piety, most importantly - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unwavering devotion to the Royal Family and loyalty to God...
Evgeny Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo, in the family of the outstanding Russian scientist and doctor, founder of the experimental direction in medicine, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. His father was the court physician of Emperors Alexander II and Alexandra 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 high school, 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 Military Medical Academy.
Evgeny Botkin's medical career began in January 1890 as a medical assistant at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. A year later, he went abroad for scientific purposes, studied with leading European scientists, and became acquainted with the structure of Berlin hospitals.
In May 1892, Evgeniy Sergeevich became a doctor at the Court Chapel, and in January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky Hospital. However, he continued scientific activity: studied immunology, studied the essence of the process of leukocytosis and protective properties formed elements of blood.
In 1893 he brilliantly defended his dissertation. The official opponent in 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 the 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 line. For excellence in his work he was awarded many orders, including military officer orders.
In the fall of 1905, Evgeniy Sergeevich returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907, he was appointed chief physician of the St. George community in the capital.
In 1907, after the death of Gustav Hirsch, the royal family was left without a physician. The candidacy for the new life physician was nominated by the empress herself, who, when asked who she would like to see in this position, answered: “Botkina.” When she was told that two Botkins are now equally famous in St. Petersburg, she said: “The one who was in the war!”
Botkin was three years older than his august patient, Nicholas II. The duty of the life physician was to treat all members of the royal family, which he carried out carefully and scrupulously. It was necessary to examine and treat the emperor, who was in good health, and the grand duchesses who were suffering from various childhood infections. But the main object of Evgeniy Sergeevich’s efforts was Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.
After the February coup of 1917 imperial family was imprisoned in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo. All servants and assistants were asked to leave the prisoners if they wished. But Dr. Botkin stayed with the patients.
He did not want to leave them and when royal family it was decided to send to Tobolsk. There he opened a free medical practice for local residents.
In April 1918, together with the royal couple and their daughter Maria, Doctor 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 was captured by Russians during the First World War and defected to the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, wrote his memoirs “How the Royal Family Died.” 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. So one of all the prisoners at home special purpose knew for sure about the imminent execution. He knew and, having the opportunity to choose, chose loyalty to the oath once given to the king over salvation.
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. For a person in my position it is impossible 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."
Doctor 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, along with others executed in the Ipatiev House, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
LIFE
PASSION-BEARER EUGENE DOCTOR (BOTKIN)
Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin came from merchant dynasty Botkin, whose representatives were distinguished by their deep Orthodox faith and charity, helped Orthodox Church not only by their means, but also by their labors. Thanks to a reasonably organized system of upbringing in the family and the wise care of his parents, many virtues were implanted in Evgeniy’s heart 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.”
Evgeniy received a thorough education at home, which allowed him to enter the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium in 1878. In 1882, Evgeniy graduated from high school and became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of 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 newly opened preparatory course at the Imperial Military Medical Academy. His choice of the medical profession from the very beginning was conscious and purposeful nature. Peter Botkin wrote about Evgeny: “He chose medicine as his profession. This corresponded to his calling: to help, to support in difficult times, to ease pain, to heal endlessly.” In 1889, Evgeniy successfully graduated from the academy, receiving the title of doctor with honors, and in January 1890 he began his labor activity at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor.
At the age of 25, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin married the daughter of a hereditary nobleman, Olga Vladimirovna Manuilova. Four children grew up in the Botkin family: Dmitry (1894–1914), Georgy (1895–1941), Tatyana (1898–1986), Gleb (1900–1969).
Simultaneously with his work at 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, Evgeniy Sergeevich was sent abroad, where he completed an internship at medical institutions Heidelberg and Berlin.
In 1897, E. S. Botkin was awarded the title of private assistant professor in internal medicine with a clinic. At his first lecture, he told students about the most important thing in a doctor’s activity: “Let us all go with love for a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him.”
Evgeniy Sergeevich considered the service of a physician to be a truly Christian work; he had religious view on illnesses, saw their connection with a person’s state of mind. In one of his letters to his son George, he expressed his attitude towards the medical profession as a means of knowledge 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 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 nurses Russian Society Red Cross. On November 19, 1897, he became a doctor at the Holy Trinity Community of Sisters of Mercy, and on 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 staff were selected with special care. Some upper-class women worked there as ordinary nurses. general principles and considered this occupation honorable for themselves. There was such enthusiasm among the employees, such a desire to help suffering people, that the St. George’s residents were sometimes compared to the early Christian community. The fact that Evgeniy 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 chief physician of the community could only be entrusted to a highly moral and religious person.
In 1904, the Russian-Japanese War began, and Evgeniy 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 Far East. On February 2, 1904, by decree of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society, he was appointed assistant to the Chief Commissioner of active armies on the medical side. Occupying this rather high administrative position, Dr. Botkin was often in the forefront.
During the war, Evgeniy Sergeevich not only showed himself to be an excellent doctor, but also showed personal bravery and courage. He wrote many letters from the front, from which a whole book was compiled - “Light and Shadows Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905." This book was soon published, and many, after reading it, discovered new sides of the St. Petersburg doctor: his Christian, loving, infinitely compassionate heart and unshakable faith in God.
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, having read Botkin’s book, wished for Evgeniy Sergeevich to become the personal doctor of the Royal Family. IN Easter Sunday, April 13, 1908, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree appointing Dr. Botkin as personal physician of the Imperial Court.
Now, after the new appointment, Evgeniy Sergeevich had to constantly be with the emperor and members of his family; his service at the royal court took place without days off or vacations. A high position and closeness to the Royal Family did not change the character of E. S. Botkin. He remained as kind and attentive to his neighbors as he had been before.
When did the first one begin? World War, Evgeniy Sergeevich asked the sovereign to send him to the front to reorganize the sanitary service. However, the emperor instructed him to remain with the empress and children in Tsarskoye Selo, where, through their efforts, infirmaries began to open. At his home in Tsarskoe Selo, Evgeniy Sergeevich also set up an infirmary for the lightly wounded, which the Empress and her daughters visited.
In February 1917, a revolution occurred in Russia. On March 2, the sovereign signed the Manifesto abdicating the throne. The royal family was arrested and detained in the Alexander Palace. Evgeniy Sergeevich did not leave his royal patients: he voluntarily decided to be with them, despite the fact that his position was abolished and his salary was no longer paid. At this time, Botkin became more than a friend to the royal prisoners: he took upon himself the responsibility of being a mediator 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. Doctor Botkin's letters from Tobolsk amaze with 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, invariably 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 townspeople. A scientist who for many years communicated with the scientific, medical, and administrative elite of Russia, he humbly served, as a zemstvo or city doctor, to ordinary peasants, soldiers, and workers.
In April 1918, Dr. Botkin volunteered to accompany the royal couple to Yekaterinburg, leaving his own children, whom he loved dearly and dearly, in Tobolsk. 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 everyone 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 and their associates, including Dr. Botkin, were shot in the basement of Ipatiev’s house.
A few years before his death, Evgeniy Sergeevich received the title of hereditary nobleman. For his coat of arms, he chose the motto: “By faith, fidelity, labor.” These words seemed to concentrate all the life ideals and aspirations of Dr. Botkin.Deep inner piety, the most important thing - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unwavering devotion to the Royal Family and loyalty to God and His commandments in all circumstances, loyalty to death.
The Lord accepts such fidelity as a pure sacrifice and gives the highest, heavenly reward for it: Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
May 27, 1865 – July 17, 1918
Russian doctor, life 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 (physician to Alexander II and Alexander III) and Anastasia Alexandrovna Krylova.
In 1878, based on the education he received at home, he was immediately admitted to the 5th grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium. After graduating from high school 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 went to the junior department of the newly opened preparatory course at the Military Medical Academy.
In 1889 he graduated from the academy third in the class, receiving the title of doctor with honors.
Work and career
From January 1890 he worked as a medical assistant at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. In December 1890, he was sent abroad at his own expense for scientific purposes. He studied with leading European scientists and became familiar with the structure of Berlin hospitals.
At the end of his business trip in May 1892, Evgeniy Sergeevich became a doctor at the court chapel, and in January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky Hospital as a supernumerary resident.
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 albumin and peptones on some functions of the animal body,” dedicated to his father. The official opponent for the defense was I.P. Pavlov.
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 privat-docent 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 (ROSC) in the Manchurian Army. “For distinction rendered in cases against the Japanese” he was awarded officer military orders - the Order of St. Vladimir III and II degrees with swords, St. Anna II degree, St. Stanislav III degree, the Serbian Order of St. Sava II degree and the Bulgarian - “For civic merit."
In the fall 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 was appointed personal physician to Nicholas II. He remained in this position until his death.
He was also an advisory member of the Military Sanitary Scientific Committee at the Imperial Headquarters, and a member of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society. He had the rank of actual state councilor.
Exile and death
In 1917, after the fall of the monarchy on March 2 (15), he remained 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, he, realizing that he would die along with the tsarist family, nevertheless refused. However, Meyer's Memoirs themselves are most likely a falsification.
Canonization and rehabilitation
Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981, along with others executed in Ipatiev’s house - both the Romanovs and their servants. The ROC's decision was different. The Canonization Commission, headed by Metropolitan Juvenal, 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. Among those rehabilitated was Evgeny Botkin.
Family
Evgeny 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 Cossack regiment, died in the First World War (December 3, 1914, he covered the retreat of the Cossack reconnaissance patrol). 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 “Memories of the Royal Family,” where she also mentioned her father. Gleb Botkin also left memoirs.
Currently, Botkin’s grandson, Konstantin Konstantinovich Melnik-Botkin (son of Tatyana Botkina and Konstantin Melnik - they had three children in total), lives in France, who coordinated the activities of the French intelligence services in the 1960s.
Proceedings
- “On the question of the influence of albumin and peptones on some functions of the animal body”
- “Light and shadows of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905: From letters to his wife” 1908.
Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin
The Botkin family is undoubtedly one of the most wonderful Russian families, which gave the country, and the world, a lot outstanding people in a wide variety of fields. Some of its representatives remained industrialists and traders before the revolution, but others went entirely into science, art, and diplomacy and achieved not only all-Russian, but also European fame. The Botkin family is very correctly characterized by the biographer of one of its most prominent representatives, the famous clinician and physician Sergei Petrovich: “S.P. Botkin came from a pure-blooded Great Russian family, without the slightest admixture of foreign blood, and thus serves as brilliant proof that if talent Slavic tribe add extensive and solid knowledge, together with a love of persistent work, then this tribe is capable of producing the most advanced figures in the field of pan-European science and thought.” For doctors, the surname Botkin primarily evokes associations with Botkin’s disease (acute viral parenchymal hepatitis); the disease is named after Sergei Petrovich Botkin, who studied jaundice and was the first to suggest its infectious nature. Someone may remember the Botkin-Gumprecht cells (corpuscles, shadows) - the remains of destroyed lymphoid cells (lymphocytes, etc.), detected by microscopy of blood smears; their number reflects the intensity of the process of destruction of lymphocytes. Back in 1892, Sergei Petrovich Botkin drew attention to leukolysis as a factor “playing a primary role in the body’s self-defense,” even greater than phagocytosis. Leukocytosis in Botkin's experiments with both the injection of tuberculin and the immunization of horses against tetanus toxin was later replaced by leukolysis, and this moment coincided with a critical decline. The same was noted by Botkin with fibrinous pneumonia. Later, the son of Sergei Petrovich, Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin, became interested in this phenomenon, to whom the term leukolysis itself belongs. Evgeniy Sergeevich later described lysed cells in the blood in typhoid fever, but not in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. But as well as Botkin the senior doctor is remembered, Botkin the junior doctor is so undeservedly forgotten... Evgeny Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo in the family of the outstanding Russian scientist and doctor, founder of the experimental direction in medicine Sergei Petrovich Botkin, physician Alexander II and Alexander III. He was the 4th child of Sergei Petrovich from his 1st marriage to Anastasia Alexandrovna Krylova. The atmosphere in the family and home education played a big role in the formation of Evgeniy Sergeevich’s personality. Financial well-being the Botkin family was founded entrepreneurial activity grandfather Evgeniy Sergeevich Pyotr Kononovich, a famous tea supplier. The percentage of the trade turnover allocated to each of the heirs allowed them to choose a business to their liking, engage in self-education and lead a life not very burdened with financial worries. There were many Botkins in the family creative personalities(artists, writers, etc.). The Botkins were related to Afanasy Fet and Pavel Tretyakov. Sergei Petrovich was a fan of music, calling music lessons a “refreshing bath”; he played the cello to the accompaniment of his wife and under the guidance of Professor I.I. Seifert. Evgeniy Sergeevich received a thorough musical education and acquired a refined musical taste. Professors of the Military Medical Academy, writers and musicians, collectors and artists came to the famous Botkin Saturdays. Among them is I.M. Sechenov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A.P. Borodin, V.V. Stasov, N.M. Yakubovich, M.A. Balakirev. Nikolai Andreevich Belogolovy, friend and biographer of S.P. Botkina, public figure and a doctor, noted: “Surrounded by his 12 children ranging in age from 30 years to a one-year-old child... he seemed like a true biblical patriarch; the children adored him, despite the fact that he knew how to maintain great discipline and blind obedience to himself in the family.” About Evgeniy Sergeevich’s mother Anastasia Alexandrovna: “What made her better than any beauty was the subtle grace and amazing tactfulness that flowed throughout her entire being and was the result of that solid school of noble upbringing through which she went through. And she was brought up remarkably versatile and thoroughly... On top of this, she was very smart, witty, sensitive to everything good and kind... And she was the most exemplary mother in the sense that, passionately loving her children, she knew how to preserve the necessary pedagogical self-control, carefully and intelligently monitored their upbringing, and promptly eradicated the emerging shortcomings in them.” Already in his childhood, Evgeniy Sergeevich’s character showed such qualities as modesty, kind attitude towards others and rejection of violence. In Pyotr Sergeevich Botkin’s book “My Brother” there are the following lines: “From a very tender age, his beautiful and noble nature was full of perfection... Always sensitive, out of delicacy, internally kind, with an extraordinary soul, he felt horror from any fight or fight ... He, as usual, did not participate in our fights, but when the fist fight took place dangerous character, he, risking injury, stopped the fighters. He was very diligent and smart in his studies." Primary home education allowed Evgeniy Sergeevich to immediately enter the 5th grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium in 1878, where the young man’s brilliant abilities in natural sciences. After graduating from high school in 1882, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University. However, the example of his father, a doctor, and the worship of medicine turned out to be stronger, and in 1883, having passed the exams for the first year of the university, he entered the junior department of the newly opened preparatory course of the Military Medical Academy (MMA). In the year of his father’s death (1889), Evgeniy Sergeevich successfully graduated from the academy third in the graduating class, was awarded the title of doctor with honors and the personalized Paltsev Prize, which was awarded to “the third highest scorer in his course...”. Medical path E.S. Botkin began in January 1890 as a medical assistant 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 and became familiar with the structure of Berlin hospitals. At the end of his foreign business trip in May 1892, Evgeniy Sergeevich began working as a doctor in the court chapel, and in January 1894 he returned to perform medical duties at the Mariinsky Hospital as a supernumerary resident. Simultaneously with clinical practice E.S. Botkin was engaged in scientific research, the main directions of which were questions of immunology, the essence of the process of leukocytosis, and the protective properties of blood cells. He brilliantly defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine “On the question of the influence of albumoses and peptones on some functions of the animal body,” dedicated to his father, at the Military Medical Academy on May 8, 1893. The official opponent for the defense was I.P. Pavlov. In the spring of 1895 E.S. Botkin is sent abroad and spends two years in medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin, where he listens to lectures and practices with leading German doctors - professors G. Munch, B. Frenkel, P. Ernst and others. Scientific works and reports of foreign business trips were published in the Botkin Hospital Newspaper and in the Proceedings of the Society of Russian Doctors. In May 1897 E.S. Botkin was elected privat-docent of the Military Medical Academy. Here are a few words from the introductory lecture given to the students of the Military Medical Academy on October 18, 1897: “Once the trust you have acquired in patients turns into sincere affection for you, when they are convinced of your invariably cordial attitude towards them. When you enter the room, you are greeted by a joyful and welcoming mood - a precious and powerful medicine, which will often help you much more than with mixtures and powders... Only a heart is needed for this, only sincere heartfelt sympathy for the sick person. So don’t be stingy, learn to give it with a wide hand to those who need it. So, let’s go with love to a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him.” In 1898, Evgeniy Sergeevich’s work “Patients in the Hospital” was published, and in 1903 - “What does it mean to “pamper” the sick?” With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904), Evgeniy Sergeevich volunteered for the active army and was appointed head of the medical unit of the Russian Red Cross Society (ROSC) in the Manchurian Army. Occupying a fairly high administrative position, he nevertheless preferred most spend time in advanced positions. Eyewitnesses said that one day a wounded company paramedic was brought in for dressing. Having done everything that was required, Botkin took the paramedic’s bag and went to the front line. The sorrowful thoughts that this shameful war evoked in the ardent patriot testified to his deep religiosity: “I am more and more depressed by the course of our war, and therefore it hurts... that the whole mass of our troubles is only the result of people’s lack of spirituality, a sense of duty, that petty calculations become higher than the concepts of the Fatherland, higher than God.” Evgeniy Sergeevich showed his attitude to this war and his purpose in it in the book “Light and Shadows of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905: From Letters to his Wife,” published in 1908. Here are some of his observations and thoughts. “I was not afraid for myself: never before have I felt the strength of my faith to such an extent. I was absolutely convinced that no matter how great the risk I was running, I would not be killed unless God so wished it. I didn’t tease fate, I didn’t stand at the guns so as not to disturb the shooters, but I realized that I was needed, and this consciousness made my position pleasant.” “I just read all the latest telegrams about the fall of Mukden and our terrible retreat to Telpin. I can’t convey to you my feelings... Despair and hopelessness cover my soul. Will we have something in Russia? Poor, poor homeland" (Chita, March 1, 1905). “For the distinction rendered in cases against the Japanese,” Evgeniy Sergeevich was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, III and II degrees with swords. Outwardly very calm and strong-willed, Doctor E.S. Botkin was a sentimental man with a fine spiritual organization. Let us turn again to the book by P.S. Botkin “My Brother”: “... I came to my father’s grave and suddenly heard sobs in a deserted cemetery. Coming closer, I saw my brother (Evgeniy) lying in the snow. “Oh, it’s you, Petya, you came to talk to dad,” and more sobs. And an hour later, during the reception of patients, it could not have occurred to anyone that this calm, self-confident and powerful man could cry like a child.” Dr. Botkin on May 6, 1905 was appointed honorary physician of the imperial family. In the fall of 1905, Evgeniy Sergeevich returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907, he was appointed chief physician of the St. George community in the capital. In 1907, after the death of Gustav Hirsch, the royal family was left without a physician. The candidacy for the new life physician was nominated by the empress herself, who, when asked who she would like to see as her life physician, answered: “Botkina.” When she was told that two Botkins are now equally famous in St. Petersburg, she said: “The one who was in the war!” (Although brother Sergei Sergeevich was also a participant in the Russo-Japanese War.) Thus, on April 13, 1908, Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin became the personal physician of the latter’s family Russian Emperor, repeating the career path of his father, who was the life physician of two Russian tsars (Alexander II and Alexander III). E.S. Botkin was three years older than his august patient, Emperor Nicholas II. The tsar's family was served by a large staff of doctors (among whom there were a variety of specialists: surgeons, ophthalmologists, obstetricians, dentists), doctors more titled than the modest private assistant professor of the Military Medical Academy. But Dr. Botkin was distinguished by a rare talent for clinical thinking and an even more rare feeling of sincere love for his patients. The duty of the life physician was to treat all members of the royal family, which he carried out carefully and scrupulously. It was necessary to examine and treat the emperor, who had amazingly good health, and the grand duchesses, who had, it seemed, suffered from all known childhood infections. Nicholas II treated his doctor with great sympathy and trust. He patiently endured all the diagnostic and treatment procedures prescribed by Dr. Botkin. But the most difficult patients were Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei. As a little girl, the future empress suffered from diphtheria, complications of which included attacks of pain in the joints, swelling of the legs, palpitations, and arrhythmia. Edema forced Alexandra Feodorovna to wear special shoes and give up long walks, and palpitations and headaches prevented her from getting out of bed for weeks. However, the main object of Evgeniy Sergeevich's efforts was Tsarevich Alexei, who was born with a dangerous and fatal disease - hemophilia. It was with the Tsarevich that E.S. spent most of his time. Botkin, sometimes with life-threatening states day and night, without leaving the sick Alexei’s bedside, surrounding him with human care and sympathy, giving him all the warmth of her generous heart. This attitude found a mutual response on the part of the little patient, who would write to his doctor: “I love you with all my little heart.” Evgeniy Sergeevich himself also sincerely became attached to the members of the royal family, more than once telling his household: “With their kindness, they made me a slave until the end of my days.”
As a doctor and how moral person, Evgeniy Sergeevich never touched upon the health of his highest-ranking patients in private conversations. Head of the Chancellery of the Ministry of the Imperial Household, General A.A. Mosolov noted: “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 devoted servant to Their Majesties.” Despite all the vicissitudes in relations with royalty, Dr. Botkin was an influential person in the royal circle. The maid of honor, friend and confidant of the Empress Anna Vyrubova (Taneeva) stated: “The faithful Botkin, appointed by the Empress herself, was very influential.” Evgeniy Sergeevich himself was far from politics, however, as a caring person, as a patriot of his country, he could not help but see the destructiveness of public sentiment in it, which he considered the main reason for Russia’s defeat in the war of 1904-1905. He understood very well that hatred of the Tsar, of the imperial family, incited by radical revolutionary circles, was beneficial only to the enemies of Russia, the Russia that his ancestors served, for which he himself fought on the fields of the Russo-Japanese War, Russia, which was entering into the cruelest and bloody world battle. He despised people who used dirty ways to achieve their goals, they composed courtly nonsense about the royal family and its morals. He spoke about such people as follows: “I don’t understand how people who consider themselves monarchists and talk about the adoration of His Majesty can so easily believe all the rumors being spread, can spread them themselves, erecting all sorts of fables about the Empress, and do not understand that, By insulting her, they thereby insult her august husband, whom they supposedly adore.” The family life of Evgeniy Sergeevich was not smooth either. Carried away by revolutionary ideas and a young (20 years younger) student at the Riga Polytechnic College, his wife Olga Vladimirovna left him in 1910. Three younger children remain in the care of Dr. Botkin: Dmitry, Tatyana and Gleb (the eldest, Yuri, already lived separately). But what saved him from despair were the children who selflessly loved and adored their father, who always looked forward to his coming, and who became anxious during his long absence. Evgeniy Sergeevich answered them in the same way, but never once took advantage of his special position to create any special conditions for him. His inner convictions did not allow him to put in a word for his son Dmitry, the cornet of the Life Guards Cossack regiment, who with the outbreak of the 1914 war went to the front and died heroically on December 3, 1914, covering the retreat of the Cossack reconnaissance patrol. The death of his son, who was posthumously awarded the St. George Cross, IV degree, for heroism, became an unhealing mental wound for his father until the end of his days. And soon an event occurred in Russia on a scale more fatal and destructive than a personal drama... After the February coup, the empress and her children were imprisoned by the new authorities in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo, a little later they were joined by the former autocrat. Everyone from the environment former rulers The commissioners of the Provisional Government were offered the choice of either staying with the prisoners or leaving them. And many, who only yesterday swore eternal loyalty to the emperor and his family, abandoned them to this hard time. Many, but not as many as physician Botkin. At the very a short time he would leave the Romanovs in order to help the typhus-stricken widow of his son Dmitry, who lived here in Tsarskoye Selo, opposite the big Catherine Palace, in the apartment of the doctor himself at 6 Sadovaya Street. When her condition ceased to inspire fear, he returned to the hermits of the Alexander Palace without requests or coercion. The Tsar and Tsarina were accused of high treason, and an investigation was underway into this case. The accusation of the former tsar and his wife was not confirmed, but the Provisional Government felt fear of them and did not agree to release them. Four key ministers of the Provisional Government (G.E. Lvov, M.I. Tereshchenko, N.V. Nekrasov, A.F. Kerensky) decided to send the royal family to Tobolsk. On the night of July 31 to August 1, 1917, the family went by train to Tyumen. And this time the retinue was asked to leave the family former emperor, and again there were those who did it. But few considered it their duty to share the fate of the former reigning persons. Among them is Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin. When the Tsar asked how he would leave the children (Tatyana and Gleb), the doctor replied that there was nothing higher for him than caring for Their Majesties. On August 3, the exiles arrived in Tyumen, from there on August 4 they departed by steamship for Tobolsk. In Tobolsk they had to live on the steamship "Rus" for about two weeks, then on August 13 the royal family was accommodated in the former governor's house, and the retinue, including doctors E.S. Botkin and V.N. Derevenko, in the house of the fishmonger Kornilov nearby. In Tobolsk, it was prescribed to observe the Tsarskoye Selo regime, that is, no one was allowed outside the designated premises, except for Doctor Botkin and Doctor Derevenko, who were allowed to provide medical care to the population. In Tobolsk, Botkin had two rooms in which he could receive patients. Evgeniy Sergeevich will write about the provision of medical care to the residents of Tobolsk and the guard soldiers in his last letter in his life: “Their trust especially touched me, and I was pleased by their confidence, which never deceived them, that I would receive them with the same attention and affection as every other patient and not only as an equal, but also as a patient who has all the rights to all my cares and services.” On September 14, 1917, daughter Tatyana and son Gleb arrived in Tobolsk. Tatyana left memories of how they lived in this city. She was brought up at court and was friends with one of the king's daughters, Anastasia. Following her, Dr. Botkin’s former patient, Lieutenant Melnik, arrived in the city. Konstantin Melnik was wounded in Galicia, and Dr. Botkin treated him at the Tsarskoye Selo hospital. Later, the lieutenant lived at his house: the young officer, the son of a peasant, was secretly in love with Tatyana Botkina. He came to Siberia to protect his savior and his daughter. To Botkin, he subtly reminded him of his deceased beloved son Dmitry. The miller recalled that in Tobolsk Botkin treated both townspeople and peasants from the surrounding villages, but did not take money, and they handed it to the cab drivers who brought the doctor. This was very helpful - Dr. Botkin could not always pay them. Lieutenant Konstantin Melnik and Tatyana Botkina got married in Tobolsk, shortly before the city was occupied by the Whites. They lived there for about a year, then through Vladivostok they reached Europe and eventually settled in France. The descendants of Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin still live in this country. In April 1918 he arrived in Tobolsk close friend Ya.M.Sverdlova Commissioner V. Yakovlev, who immediately declared the doctors also arrested. However, due to confusion, only Dr. Botkin was limited in freedom of movement. On the night of April 25-26, 1918, the Emperor with his wife and daughter Maria, Anna Demidova and Doctor Botkin, under the escort of a new special forces detachment under the leadership of Yakovlev, were sent to Yekaterinburg. A typical example: suffering from cold and kidney colic, the doctor gave his fur coat to Princess Maria, who had no warm clothes. After certain ordeals, the prisoners reached Yekaterinburg. On May 20, the remaining members of the royal family and some of the retinue arrived here. The children of Evgeniy Sergeevich remained in Tobolsk. Botkin’s daughter recalled her father’s departure from Tobolsk: “There were no orders about doctors, but at the very beginning, hearing that Their Majesties were coming, my father announced that he would go with them. “What about your children?” - Her Majesty asked, knowing our relationship and the terrible worries that my father always experienced when separated from us. To this my father replied that the interests of Their Majesties came first for him. Her Majesty was moved to tears and especially thanked her.” The regime of detention in a special purpose house (the mansion of engineer N.K. Ipatiev), where the royal family and its devoted servants were housed, was strikingly different from the regime in Tobolsk. But even here E.S. Botkin enjoyed the trust of the guard soldiers, to whom he provided medical assistance. Through him there was communication between the crowned prisoners and the commandant of the house, who became Yakov Yurovsky on July 4, and members of the Ural Council. The doctor petitioned for walks for prisoners, for access to Alexey’s teacher S.I. Gibbs and teacher Pierre Gilliard, tried in every possible way to ease the regime of detention. Therefore, his name is increasingly found in recent diary entries Nicholas II. Johann Meyer, an Austrian soldier who was captured by Russians during the First World War and defected to the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, wrote his memoirs “How the Royal Family Died.” 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, Dr. Botkin knew for sure about the imminent execution. He knew and, having the opportunity to choose, chose loyalty to the oath once given to the king over salvation. This is how I. Meyer describes it: “You see, I gave the king my word of honor to remain with him as long as he lives. For a person in my position it is impossible 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." This fact is consistent with the contents of the document stored in State Archives Russian Federation. This document is the last, unfinished letter from Evgeniy Sergeevich, dated July 9, 1918. Many researchers believe that the letter is addressed to younger brother A.S. Botkin. However, this seems undisputed, since in the letter the author often refers to the “principles of the 1889 edition,” to which Alexander Sergeevich had nothing to do. Most likely, it was addressed to an unknown friend and fellow student. “My voluntary imprisonment here is not limited by time as much as my earthly existence is limited... In essence, I died, I died for my children, for my friends, for my cause. I am dead, but not yet buried or buried alive... I do not indulge myself in hope, I am not lulled by illusions and I look the unvarnished reality straight in the eye... I am supported by the conviction that “he who endures to the end will be saved,” and the consciousness that I remain faithful to the principles of the 1889 edition... In general, if “faith without works is dead,” then “works” without faith can exist, and if one of us adds faith to works, then this is only special to him the mercy of God... This justifies my last decision, when I did not hesitate to leave my children as orphans in order to fulfill my medical duty to the end, just as Abraham did not hesitate at God’s demand to sacrifice his only son to him.” All those killed in N. Ipatiev’s house were ready for death and met it with dignity; even the killers noted this in their memoirs. At half past two on the night of July 17, 1918, the inhabitants of the house were awakened by Commandant Yurovsky and, under the pretext of transferring them to a safe place, he ordered everyone to go down to the basement. Here he announced the decision of the Ural Council to execute the royal family. With two bullets flying past the Emperor, Doctor Botkin was wounded in the stomach (one bullet reached lumbar region spine, the other is stuck in the soft tissues of the pelvic area). The third bullet damaged both knee joint doctor, who stepped towards the king and prince. He fell. After the first volleys, the killers finished off their victims. According to Yurovsky, Dr. Botkin was still alive and lay calmly on his side, as if he had fallen asleep. “I finished him off with a shot to the head,” Yurovsky later wrote. Kolchak's intelligence investigator N. Sokolov, who conducted the investigation into the murder case in Ipatiev's house, among other material evidence in a hole in the vicinity of the village of Koptyaki not far from Yekaterinburg, also discovered a pince-nez that belonged to Dr. Botkin. The last physician of the last Russian emperor, Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin, was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981 along with others executed in the Ipatiev House.
The Consecrated Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church (February 2-3, 2016) canonized Dr. Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin in
Anna Vlasova
(Based on the works of L.A. Anninsky, V.N. Solovyov, Botkina S.D., King G., Wilson P., Krylova A.N.)
, passion-bearer, righteous doctor
He received a home education and was immediately accepted into the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium. After graduating from high school, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, but after passing the exams for the first year of the university, he entered the junior department of the newly opened preparatory course at the Military Medical Academy.
One of the reasons for such a cautious attitude was the non-Orthodox confession of some of them; however, E. S. Botkin’s Old Believers were not mentioned in the report. The motive for the canonization of non-Orthodox persons in the ROCOR was the precedents of the Church glorifying victims of persecution of Christians who did not accept baptism - for example, pagans who joined Christians during execution.
On October 7 of that year at the next meeting working group by agreement of the monthlies of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Church Abroad, which took place under the chairmanship of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and with the participation of the First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, "noted the results of the study of the feat of persons revered in the Russian diaspora. The possibility of a church-wide glorification of the following saints, previously canonized by the Russian Church Abroad, was recognized: ‹…› the righteous passion-bearer Evgeniy the doctor (Botkin), who accepted suffering along with royal family in the Ipatiev House (+1918, memory 4/17 July)".
Evgeny Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoye Selo, in the family of the outstanding Russian scientist and doctor, 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 high school, 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 at the Military Medical Academy.
Evgeny Botkin's medical career began in January 1890 as a medical assistant at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. A year later, he went abroad for scientific purposes, studied with leading European scientists, and became acquainted with the structure of Berlin hospitals. In May 1892, Evgeniy Sergeevich became a doctor at the Court Chapel, and in January 1894 he returned to the Mariinsky Hospital. At the same time, he continued his scientific activities: he studied 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 in the defense was the physiologist and first Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov.
With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904), Evgeny Botkin volunteered for the active army and became the 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 line. For excellence in his work he was awarded many orders, including military officer orders.
In the fall of 1905, Evgeniy Sergeevich returned to St. Petersburg and began teaching at the academy. In 1907, he was appointed chief physician of the St. George community in the capital. In 1907, after the death of Gustav Hirsch, the royal family was left without a physician. The candidacy for the new life physician was nominated by the empress herself, who, when asked who she would like to see in this position, answered: “Botkina.” When she was told that two Botkins are now equally famous in St. Petersburg, she said: “The one who was in the war!”
Botkin was three years older than his august patient, Nicholas II. The duty of the life physician was to treat all members of the royal family, which he carried out carefully and scrupulously. It was necessary to examine and treat the emperor, who was in good health, and the grand duchesses who were suffering from various childhood infections. But the main object of Evgeniy Sergeevich’s efforts was Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia.
After the February coup of 1917, the imperial family was imprisoned in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoe Selo. All servants and assistants were asked to leave the prisoners if they wished. But Dr. Botkin stayed with the patients. He did not want to leave them even 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, Doctor 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 was captured by Russians during the First World War and defected to the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg, wrote his memoirs “How the Royal Family Died.” 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 in the special purpose house knew for sure about the imminent execution. He knew and, having the opportunity to choose, chose loyalty to the oath once given to the king over salvation. 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. For a person in my position it is impossible 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."
Doctor 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 executed in the Ipatiev House, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
PASSION-BEARER EUGENE THE DOCTOR (BOTKIN) – life and icon
Evgeniy Sergeevich Botkin was born on May 27, 1865 in Tsarskoe Selo, St. Petersburg province, into the family of the famous Russian general practitioner, professor of the Medical-Surgical Academy, Sergei Petrovich Botkin. He came from the Botkin merchant dynasty, whose representatives were distinguished by their deep Orthodox faith and charity, helped the Orthodox Church kwi not only by their means, but also by their labors. Thanks to a reasonably organized system of upbringing in the family and the wise care of his parents, many virtues were implanted in Eugene’s heart 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.”
Evgeniy received a thorough education at home, which allowed him to enter the fifth grade of the 2nd St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium in 1878. In 1882, Evgeniy graduated from high school and became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of 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 newly opened preparatory course at the Imperial Military Medical Academy. His choice of the medical profession from the very beginning was deliberate and purposeful. Peter Botkin wrote about Evgeny: “He chose medicine as his profession. This corresponded to his calling: to help, to support in difficult times, to ease pain, to heal endlessly.” In 1889, Evgeniy successfully graduated from the academy, receiving the title of doctor with honors, and in January 1890 he 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 Manuilova. Four children grew up in the Botkin family: Dmitry (1894–1914), Georgy (1895–1941), Tatyana (1898–1986), Gleb (1900–1969).
Simultaneously with his work at 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, Evgeniy Sergeevich was sent abroad, where he practiced in medical institutions in Heidelberg and Berlin. In 1897, E. S. Botkin was awarded the title of private assistant professor in internal medicine with a clinic. At his first lecture, he told students about the most important thing in a doctor’s activity: “Let us all go with love for a sick person, so that we can learn together how to be useful to him.” Evgeniy Sergeevich considered the service of a physician to be a truly Christian activity; he had a religious view of illness and saw their connection with a person’s mental state. In one of his letters to his son George, he expressed his attitude towards the medical profession as a means of learning 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 mysteries of God’s creations, and it is impossible not to enjoy their purposefulness and harmony and His highest wisdom.”
Since 1897, E. S. Botkin began his medical work in the communities of nurses of the Russian Red Cross Society. On November 19, 1897, he became a doctor at the Holy Trinity Community of Sisters of Mercy, and on 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 staff were selected with special care. Some upper-class women worked there as simple nurses on a general basis and considered this occupation honorable for themselves. There was such enthusiasm among the employees, such a desire to help suffering people, that the St. George’s residents were sometimes compared to the early Christian community. The fact that Evgeniy 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 chief physician of the community could only be entrusted to a highly moral and religious person.
In 1904, the Russian-Japanese War began, and Evgeniy 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 decree of the Main Directorate of the Russian Red Cross Society, he was appointed assistant to the Commissioner-in-Chief of the active armies for medical affairs. Occupying this rather high administrative position, Dr. Botkin was often in the forefront. During the war, Evgeniy Sergeevich not only showed himself to be an excellent doctor, but also showed personal bravery and courage. He wrote many letters from the front, from which a whole book was compiled - “The Light and Shadows of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904–1905.” This book was soon published, and many, after reading 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, having read Botkin’s book, wished for Evgeniy Sergeevich to become the personal doctor of the Royal Family. On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1908, Emperor Nicholas II signed a decree appointing Dr. Botkin as personal physician of the Imperial Court.
Now, after the new appointment, Evgeniy Sergeevich had to constantly be with the emperor and members of his family; his service at the royal court took place without days off or vacations. A high position and closeness to the Royal Family did not change the character of E. S. Botkin. He remained as kind and attentive to his neighbors as he had been before.
When the First World War began, Evgeniy Sergeevich asked the sovereign to send him to the front to reorganize the sanitary service. However, the emperor instructed him to remain with the empress and children in Tsarskoye Selo, where, through their efforts, infirmaries began to open. At his home in Tsarskoe Selo, Evgeniy Sergeevich also set up an infirmary for the lightly wounded, which the Empress and her daughters visited.
In February 1917, a revolution occurred in Russia. On March 2, the sovereign signed the Manifesto abdicating the throne. The royal family was arrested and detained in the Alexander Palace. Evgeniy Sergeevich did not leave his royal patients: he voluntarily decided to be with them, despite the fact that his position was abolished and his salary was no longer paid. At this time, Botkin became more than a friend for the royal prisoners: he took upon himself the responsibility of acting as an intermediary 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. Doctor Botkin's letters from Tobolsk amaze with 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, invariably 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 townspeople. A scientist who for many years communicated with the scientific, medical, and administrative elite of Russia, he humbly served, as a zemstvo or city doctor, to ordinary peasants, soldiers, and workers.
In April 1918, Dr. Botkin volunteered to accompany the royal couple to Yekaterinburg, leaving his own children, whom he loved dearly and dearly, in Tobolsk. 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 everyone 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 and their associates, including Dr. Botkin, were shot in the basement of Ipatiev’s house.
A few years before his death, Evgeniy Sergeevich received the title of hereditary nobleman. For his coat of arms, he chose the motto: “By faith, fidelity, labor.” These words seemed to concentrate all the life ideals and aspirations of Dr. Botkin. Deep inner piety, the most important thing - sacrificial service to one's neighbor, unwavering devotion to the Royal Family and loyalty to God and His commandments in all circumstances, loyalty to death. The Lord accepts such fidelity as a pure sacrifice and gives the highest, heavenly reward for it: Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life (Rev. 2:10).
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