The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-17
BURIED ALIVE IN TIRASPOL.
Details Of the Russian Fanatics
Amazing FOrtifude.

Tiraspol Letter in London Daily News.
On reaching the end of short but lovely
Vernal glade, the cleaning white walls of
Fedor KoVaIeff'S dwelling suddenly came
into view in the brilliant sunshine. 1t nat
urally occurs to me that the cottage and
it's pretty outrageous surroundings form
picture more attractive for the pencil than
the pen. My companion silently points to
gaping cavity. blaclIly shaded within, near
the base of one of the cottage gables. Down
in this cellar cave were entombed alive the
first nine victims, including Kovalens wife
and two children, aged, respectively TOUR
months and four years, ana his sister one
marvels, on a closer inspection that this
horrible small black hole was made to ac-
commodate nine persons lying pros'tJrate'
even though two of them were children.
The victims appear, however, to have as
Sumed the most convenient postureS for
economizing the limited space, lying very
closely together and alternately head to
feet. A curious evidence of the cramped
position in which one of the victims here
found himself is shown by small cavity
with his finger nails in order to give room
for the repose of the head and shoulders.
In another and closely adjacent part of
Kovaleff's premises saw the still open and
shallow pit from which the remains of six
other victims were exhumed. then visited
the places in SukhOtfS and GorS1nS gar
dens where the two parties of six and four
victims were unearthed. Many Of the
bodies were in an advanced state of decom-
position when eXhumed, more especially
those of the victims who were buried many
months ago.
l may here state that the living inter-
ments took place the following dates
(all Old Style): Nine persons were walled up
alive in Kovaleff's cellar on Dec %; six
were buried alive in Gorsin,s garden on
Dec. 27; six in Kovaleffs garden, including
Vitalia and KoValeff's mother, on Feb. 3,
and the last four in Sukhoff's garden on
Feb. %. Force, or even torture, would have
availed nothing in the endeayors to compel
Kovaleff to disclose the burial places Of the
other victims after the discovery about
three weeks ago of those walled up in his
II Through
name sympathetic and persuasive advice
and pleadings Of the prison governor that
KoValeff finally consented to reveal the
whole story and point out the three other
hecatombs.
one of the most striking and extraor-
binary aspects of these tragedies is that fur
nished by the marvellous moral resoluteness
and physical hardihood of the fanatic zeal
OTIS In my last letter | referred to the self
starvation OF those Beguni prisoners who
were arrested as vagabonds for refusing to
satisfy the inquiries of the census enumer-
ators. The prison governor is absolutely
convinced that they would have literally
persisted of hunger and thirst had he not
released them at the last moment, and
when they were PROSTATE from exhaustion.
But now comes a little more convincing
proof of the marvellous force of miSdirected
will and unfinching determination of the
victims. All the living interments took
place at night, in one or two cases in the
presence of two of KovaleHs companions.
and on the other occasions in presence of
several passive co-religionist witnesses. All
fully elected by the examining magistrates.
In each case the victim, previous to the
sacrlicial rite, endued themselves in their
best garments, and over these enveloped
themselves in funereal shrOuds They then
Frustrated themselves silently and resigned
ly in their living graves lying in close ar
ray. and always on the right side. and
without uttering an involuntary moan or
cry without so much moving a hard or
limb they permitted themselves to be
slowly buried alive by the covering earth
deliberately shoveled over them by the sin
gle spade welded by Fedor Kovaleff. One
stands aghast and dumfounded at the bare
thought not only of the access of religious
fanaticsm which impelled these wretched
people to q voluntary auto-da-fe, but of
the astonishing physical control displayed
in the manner of their self-submisson 10 a
horribly cruel death There is something
inhuman in such martyr will and martyr
courage as here manifested. Any one of the
victims weakly relenting his resolution at
the last moment, or unable to suppress the
human and physical instinct which causes
a dying person to wrestle with the death
agony might have stepped out of the grave
while the clods from Kovaleffs spade were
still falling over him or her; but they made
not a resisting movement. as IS conclusively
shown by the various Photographic pictures
showing the positions Of the bodies when
recently uncovered.
No less strong of nerve and of fanatic
fortitude must have been kovaletf, who