Podzhio

brothers of Italian descent and Decembrists.

Aleksandr Viktorovich Podzhio. Born Apr. 27 (May 8), 1798, in Nikolaev; died June 6 (18), 1873, in the village of Veronki, now in Chernigov Oblast.

Aleksandr Podzhio was a lieutenant colonel in the Preobra-zhenskii Life Guards Regiment, from which he resigned in 1825. A member of the Northern and Southern societies, he served as liaison between them and carried out important conspiratorial assignments. He was a close associate of P. I. Pestel’. A republican, he advocated the extermination of the tsar’s family and a decisive struggle against autocracy.

In December 1825, Podzhio prompted S. G. Volkonskii and other Decembrists to incite rebellion in Tul’chin. He was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, which he spent in the Nerchinsk Mines. In 1839 he was exiled to Siberia, to the village of Ust’-Kudimskoe in Irkutsk Province. He returned to European Russia in 1859, and beginning in 1863 spent several years abroad, where he became friends with A. I. Herzen. He wrote memoirs, Notes of a Decembrist (Moscow, 1930).

Iosif Viktorovich Podzhio. Born Aug. 30 (Sept. 10), 1792, in Nikolaev; died Jan. 8 (20), 1848, in Irkutsk.

Iosif Podzhio was a captain second class of the Preobrazhen-skii Life Guards Regiment, from which he resigned in 1818. He served in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in 1824 joined the Southern Society. He was a republican and volunteered to help assassinate Alexander I. Podzhio was condemned to 12 years of hard labor, which he spent in the ShlissePburg Fortress. In 1834 he was exiled to Eastern Siberia.