Afanasi Matushenko

Deceased Person

1879 – 1907

 Credit ยป
65

Who was Afanasi Matushenko?

Afanasy Nikolayevich Matushenko, was a political activist, a non-commissioned officer in the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and head of the uprising on the Russian battleship Potemkin.

He was born into a peasant family in the village of Derhachi, eight miles north west of Kharkiv. He lived in a tiny hut with his parents and 5 siblings. His father Nikolai was an ex-serf, earning money on the side as a cobbler. After the famine of 1891, Nikolai became an alcoholic. Afanasy, who had learned to read at 9, had to take up cobbling when he was 12. Matushenko managed to finish a church parish school. Since his childhood he befriended with Hnat Khotkevych.

At 15 he ran away to Kharkiv, became a railway oilman, and in 1896 he went to Odessa, and became a coalman on a steamship that took him to Vladivostok where he lived for 2 years as a railway machinist. In 1898, he became a docker at Rostov-on-Don where he joined a Marxist study circle led by future Bolshevik Vladimir Petrov.

On his 21st birthday, Afanasy was conscripted for 7 years into the navy and sent to Sevastopol for a 4-month training. The harsh discipline alienated him from the officers. After training, he went to Kronstadt, near St. Petersburg, where he finished a course in torpedo machinery. In 1902, he was promoted to quartermaster on the Battleship Potemkin. Here he joined Tsentralka, the sailors' revolutionary organisation. Sailors looked up to him as a protector: "He would go through fire for his brother sailor", said one. On the morning of June 10, 1905, Tsentralka met on Malakhov hill, just outside Sebastopol. Over 100 sailors were there. In March,they had already written "The Resolution of the Black Sea sailors" calling for the end of Tsarism and a Constituent assembly. They agreed the Black Sea fleet would mutiny on June 21, though Matushenko had wanted the mutiny to start immediately.

We need you!

Help us build the largest biographies collection on the web!

Born
May 2, 1879
Died
Oct 20, 1907

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

Citation

Use the citation below to add to a bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Afanasi Matushenko." Biographies.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.biographies.net/biography/afanasi-matushenko/m/0fqnx97>.

Discuss this Afanasi Matushenko biography with the community:

0 Comments

    Browse Biographies.net