About Admiral Nakhimov, poet Ammosov and Public Unrest

The article is devoted to the attribution of the poem “To the people of Sevastopol.” The author establishes that the poem was written in February 1863 by a former participant in the Crimean War of 1853 –1856 and quite famous poet A.N. Ammosov, whose other works are in the field of view of researchers. It turns out that the poem was created in connection with the participation of Ammosov in one of the annual dinners of veterans of the Crimean War, but did not immediately attract attention. It was first published in full in 1898 in the memoirs of a military journalist and writer, the initiator of the Sevastopol Defense Museum P.K. Menkov, however, this publication did not update the poem as a whole. The focus of attention was always only one stanza from it, in which the graves of admirals P.S. Nakhimov and V.A. Kornilov were mentioned. This stanza was first published in 1868 as an epigraph to an article by A.B. Aslanbegov, written in response to an article published in 1867 by a certain Sevastopolian who deheroized the admirals and presented the Battle of Sinop as a predictable victory due to the superiority of the Russian military forces and as a reason to involve England and France in the Crimean War. In February 1868, at a traditional Sevastopol dinner, many speakers argued with this article and quoted the stanza several times, referring to Aslanbekov. It was this publication that made the stanza relevant to our time.