Zakhar Gorazdykh

Zakhar Gorazdykh is a partisan whose role in a conspiracy against Liberius Mikulitsyn reveals the disorder and brutal self-interest operating inside the partisan camp. Once spared prosecution after denouncing other offenders, he becomes the plot’s most vocal organizer; the conspiracy is uncovered before it succeeds, and he later appears among the men condemned for it.

Identity and Place in the Camp

Gorazdykh is described as a drunkard and a sinister figure. He had been mixed up in the affair of the vodka brewing, but was not being prosecuted at that point because he had denounced the principal offenders. That history places him among the camp’s compromised and disorderly elements: denunciation has kept him outside one prosecution, but it has not made him trustworthy to the people around him.

He is associated with younger partisans already regarded as responsible for outrages and disorder, including Goshka, Sanka, Koska, and Terentii Galuzin. Yet during the secret meeting, Gorazdykh stands out from the group. He does most of the talking, and his manner and command of the discussion make him seem the conspiracy’s ringleader.

The Plot Against Liberius

Yurii Andreievich overhears the conspirators while they believe themselves unobserved. The meeting includes delegates from enemy positions, who speak so quietly that Yurii cannot make out their words. He can nevertheless infer that they are negotiating with the partisans, and Gorazdykh’s speech makes the stakes plain: the Whites want Liberius alive, and the conspirators are to help deliver him.

Gorazdykh insists on secrecy and threatens anyone who speaks. He presents betrayal as the group’s only way out, saying they must earn pardon by carrying out an unprecedented trick. When the delegates’ instructions are discussed, he repeats that Liberius is wanted alive, then lays out a plan to bring him to a ford, where the conspirators can fall on him together and tie him up. If they cannot take him alive, Gorazdykh says he will finish him himself. His willingness to threaten both his fellow plotters and Liberius makes the plan less a negotiated exchange than an attempted seizure enforced by intimidation.

The plot also depends on drawing Liberius into the trap. Gorazdykh mocks the commander’s prohibitions on cursing, drunkenness, and sexual conduct, representing them as rules that make ordinary life impossible. He calls Liberius a hermit and a half-wit, and uses the prospect of being turned into monks or eunuchs to ridicule his discipline. The speech gives the conspirators a pretext for their treachery: they portray the commander’s restraints as an intolerable assault on their way of life.

Exposure and Arrest

The meeting gradually moves out of Yurii’s hearing before he can learn every detail. He recognizes that the intended victim is Liberius and is horrified, despite having often wished his tormentor dead himself. He resolves to warn Liberius and to tell Kamennodvorsky about the plot without naming anyone. When Yurii returns, however, Kamennodvorsky has gone; only an assistant remains by the smoldering fire, watching to keep it from spreading.

The crime never takes place. The conspiracy is already known, its details are disclosed that day, and the plotters are seized. Sivobluy, a member of the commander’s bodyguard who had been present at the meeting, is revealed as an agent provocateur. The exposure overturns Yurii’s initial understanding of the gathering: even the apparently compromising presence of a trusted partisan had been part of the operation to discover the conspirators. The revelation leaves Yurii more disgusted, not relieved; the plot’s prevention does not undo the degradation of a camp in which apparent comrades negotiate with the enemy to hand over their leader.

Condemnation and the Execution Scene

Gorazdykh later appears among the condemned conspirators being driven toward a rocky ledge. When Rzhanitsky fires at the guards and misses Sivobluy, the disturbance turns chaotic. Rzhanitsky throws away his revolver; its accidental discharge wounds Pachkolia in the foot. As Pachkolia cries out and cannot put his weight on the injured foot, Gorazdykh and Pafnutkin lift him and drag him by the arms to keep the crowd from trampling him.

The moment gives Gorazdykh a grimly specific place in the execution’s disorder. He is still one of the men being led to death, yet he helps another condemned man through the crush, while Pachkolia’s screams spread panic through the crowd. Around them, the men swear, plead, pray, and curse; the young Galuzin falls to his knees and begs to live. Gorazdykh’s earlier threats had cast him as a man ready to control others through violence, but at the execution he is also part of a mass of frightened prisoners, caught in the consequences of the conspiracy he helped organize.