Tartu Credit Center Massacre

The massacre of the Tartu Krediidikassa is located in the context of a policy of intimidation and destruction behind the Red Army, which is called Red Terror. The basis of the Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the Decree of 5 September 1918 on the Red Terror, which ordered the shooting of so-called enemies of the people or their placement in concentration camps. On the territory of Estonia, the Red Terror was carried out between 1918 and 1919 on the territory under the control of the Estonian Working People's Commune.[1]

Victims of the Bolsheviks in Tartu, during 1919

Immediately before the liberation of Tartu by the 2nd Division of the Estonian Army, the chairman of the Tartu Counter-Revolutionary Commission, Aleksander Kull,[2] ordered the execution of 19 people detained in the basement of the former Tartu Credit Centre on Kompanii Street. Among those to be executed were Orthodox Bishop Plato, two Orthodox high priests (Nikolai Bezanitsky and Mikhail Bleive), two Lutheran pastors - Professor of Theology at the University of Tartu (Gotthilft Traugott Hahn and Moritz Wilhelm Paul Schwartz), three landowners, one manor owner, Arnold Johann Heinrich von Tideböhl, Commissioner of the Baltic German in Tartu, a lawyer, a potter, a student and even a Russian Red Army soldier.[2][3]

The death sentence was carried out by a penitentiary formed from the fighters of the 2nd Viljandi Estonian Communist Hunt, led by Commissioner Aleksander Jea. The same squad had carried out executions in Elistvere municipality two days earlier. It had a total of 117 men.[4]

After the massacre, Kull and his subordinates left Lenin Võrru on an armored train, which was still under the control of the Red Army. Before that, the Bolsheviks fled the city and arrested Vilde, an accountant of the city government, and Arved Eichhorn, a city architect, on Promenaadi Street, who was taken to Pepler Street for shooting. Eichhorn survived the shooting but was seriously injured.

According to the Bolshevik newspaper Edas, published in Võru on January 16, 1919, the executions were motivated by the fact that on the morning of January 14, the chairman of the Committee for Combating the Counter-Revolution, Aleksander Kulli, had been tried to be killed with poisoned coffee.  However, the historian Taavi Minnik has considered the executions primarily as revenge for the activities of Julius Kuperjanov's partisans.[2]

The security team left their posts after serving lunch to the detainees on 14 January. Shortly afterwards, about 200 inmates in the former Krediidikassa building were able to be released with the help of city residents.

The Memorial on Kompanii Street 3.

Today, the memorial plaque is marked on the wall of the house on Kompanii Street 3.[7]  In addition, the 2003 In the wall of the same building Tõnis Paberiti made a bronze bas-relief of Bishop Plato.

In the Orthodox Cathedral of Paris , a prayer of soul was held in memory of Bishop Plato and the other victims on the orders of Jaan Poska , the head of the Estonian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference . All representatives of the Estonian delegation, led by Poska, were at the service.[5]

During the interwar period, the victims of the massacre were reminded with prayers at the former Tartu Krediidikassa building. This tradition was initiated in January 1922 by the clergy of the Tartu Orthodox Church, and from January 1923 the Lutheran clergy joined them and the prayers acquired an ecumenical character. Alexander (Paulus) , the metropolitan of Tallinn and all of Estonia , and later the Lutheran Church of the Estonian Gospel , always took part in these prayers .bishops. At the end of the 1920s, prayers and memorial services for victims were held on January 14 in Tartu Orthodox and Lutheran churches. With the participation of the representatives of both churches, a committee for commemorating the victims of the basement of the Tartu Credit Fund was formed, under the leadership of which the cellar where the massacre was committed was rebuilt into a memorial chapel. It was consecrated on January 14, 1931.[8]

The victims of the Krediidikassa massacre have also been commemorated during the events marking the anniversary of the liberation of Tartu after regaining independence.

Orthodox clergy killed in the massacre - Bishop Plato (Kulbusch), high priests Nikolai Bezanitsky and Mikhail Bleive - have been declared saints.[9][10][11][12]