Draft:Ivan Ivanovich Riznich

Ivan Ivanovich Riznich (January 17, 1878, Russian Empire – approximately 1920) – naval officer of the Russian Navy, one of the first Russian submariners, commander of the submarine "Saint George", the first in the history of the Russian fleet to undertake a long ocean voyage.

Origin
He came from the nobility of the Kyiv province. His great-grandfather Stefan Riznich, a Serb from Dubrovnik, ran a trading office in Trieste, which was later passed on to his son Jovan Riznich (1792-1861). In 1822, Ivan Stefanovich moved from Trieste to Imperial Russia, specifically to Odessa, where he was engaged in the import of grain [1]. He accepted Russian citizenship, occupied a prominent position, was the director and main patron of the Odessa theater, was acquainted with Pushkin, and his first wife Amalia Riznich was the object of passion of A. Pushkin, who dedicated several poems to her[2]. Riznich's second wife was a Polish woman, Countess Paulina Rzhevuska, the sister of Evelina Hanska (Balzac's wife) and Karolina Sobanska, with whom Pushkin was also in love. In 1823, Riznich was granted the title of Commerce Advisor, and in 1928 - Court Advisor. In 1833, Riznich went bankrupt and entered the service as an official on special assignments under the Governor-General Count Levashev. In 1839, he moved to Kyiv with his new wife, where he received the position of director of the Kyiv office of the Commercial Bank. Having risen to the rank of state councilor, Ivan Stepanovich was elevated to hereditary nobility by decree of June 15, 1848. In May 1850, he retired and settled in his wife's estate in the village of Gopchitsa. The couple had two daughters and three sons. The younger, Ivan, was born in Kyiv on November 13, 1841, while his son Ivan was born on January 17, 1878 in the city of Yanov in the Lublin province [3].

Service
Graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps. He began his service in 1895 in the Black Sea Fleet crew.

From 1899, he served as a watch officer on the battleship Sinop, then as an inspector on the mine cruiser Griden, and as an inspector and diving officer on the cruiser Pamyat Merkuria. In 1900, he graduated from a diving school.

In 1902, he served as an assistant to the head of the diving school. For service during the Russo-Japanese War, "for work under wartime circumstances," he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree, and the medal "In Memory of the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Gangut." In 1904, he was enrolled in the 8th naval crew, which trained underwater navigation specialists. He trained on the "Dolphin," the first Russian submarine, under Captain Beklemishev. He participated in torpedo firing at the Kronstadt roadstead. He commanded one of the first Russian submarines, the "Pike." Under his command, the boat was completed, launched, and tested, but as soon as the boat was accepted by the commission, it was sent to Vladivostok to participate in the Russo-Japanese War. And Ivan Riznich successively became the commander of several other new Russian submarines: "Losos", "Beluga", "Sterlyad" (1904-1906)

On "Sterlyad" Riznich made an unprecedented at that time passage in stormy weather from Libau to Riga without an escort vessel. Ivan Ivanovich Riznich summarized the experience of this voyage in the brochure "Submarine "Sterlyad", which became one of the first textbooks on the practice of underwater navigation. The brochure was classified, and to this day not a single surviving copy has been found.

Submarine officer on the first list (1907). In December 1907 Riznich transferred to the newly created training detachment of underwater navigation. During his service, he compiled the first "Dictionary of Command Words for Controlling Submarines", that is, he is the author of most of the commands on submarines in Russian: "Stand at your posts!", "Dive!" etc.

He studied at the Aleksandrovskaya Military Law Academy, from where he was laid off due to illness. On July 3, 1908, he was discharged into the reserve with the right to wear the badge of distinction for "impeccable service." This was caused by the polemic that had unfolded about the role of the submarine fleet in the future Russian Navy: in 1907, in the St. Petersburg naval circle, Riznich gave a lecture on "Underwater navigation and its importance for Russia" in defiance of his opponent, Captain-Lieutenant Alexander Kolchak, who argued that the submarine fleet was not needed. A similar polemic unfolded on the pages of the "Naval Collection", where Captain-Lieutenant Robert von Engelman argued that "Any fishing boat is immeasurably more capable than a submarine...", and publicly boasted of putting his cap on the periscope of any of the submarines of the training detachment, to which Riznich objected:

''So, society considers me a fanatic of underwater navigation. Why? Because I say that a submarine is a powerful, although not universal weapon... I am an optimist and therefore I believe that everything is improving in this world, everything is moving forward. My fantasy gives me a picture of the future; do I have reason not to trust it? No, because in my short life I have seen what was previously “fantasy” for me… Today it’s fantasy, and tomorrow it’s fact. Perhaps submarine cruisers will soon appear, which will make real naval warfare impossible. “Dum spiro, spero”''

Riznich's opponents had higher ranks and occupied much higher posts: Kolchak by this time was the head of the tactical department of the naval general staff. In the reserves, Riznich was engaged in commerce; according to the reference book "All Petersburg" for 1909, he sold bicycles of the "Dux" company. He also continued to give public lectures in defence of the submarine fleet, which he later published at his own expense in the form of brochures, some of which, for example, "Answer to those who doubt the usefulness of submarines" have been preserved in libraries. He and his son maintained friendship with Vitaly Bianki, the poet-submariner Alexey Lebedev, the commander of the submarine "Lembit" Matiyasevich, the polar explorer Boris Vilkitsky.

After the outbreak of World War I, on July 28, 1914, Lieutenant Riznich was summoned from the reserves. In August 1914, he was appointed commander of submarine No. 2, and in May 1915 he was appointed head of the special-purpose submarine division: three slow-moving and small-tonnage boats. The division was intended to defend Pärnu Bay. However, the division did not have the opportunity to participate in combat missions: almost all the time the boats were at the berth wall, making only a few short patrol missions. The logbook of boat No. 3, on which Riznich held the broad pennant, is full of completely non-combat events: March 1, 1915. Pärnu military harbour. Painted the hull." The following days: "... Cleaned the tanks", "... The team went to church", "The team went to the bathhouse", sometimes there was a note: "There were no incidents". On August 3, 1915, he received the rank of senior lieutenant "for distinguished service and special efforts caused by the circumstances of the war." In 1916, the division was disbanded. Riznich, along with his boat No. 3, was sent to the Danube. In 1916-17, boat No. 3 worked on the tasks of moral influence on the enemy and escorting transport ships. Soon, in connection with the approach of active hostilities to the Lower Danube, the boat was included in the Galatsky detachment of the Russian Danube military flotilla. Based in the port of Reni, it guarded the bridge from the monitors of the Austro-Hungarian flotilla. Thus, Riznich became the first submariner of Russia to operate in river conditions, and quite heavy ones.

Raising the flag on the "Saint George"
In 1917, Ivan Riznich was appointed commander of the submarine "Saint George", which was being built in Italy by order of the Naval Ministry of the Russian Empire. On this small coastal defense boat, under the control of a personally selected crew, Riznich made an unprecedented for Russia 5,000-mile voyage from La Spezia and Arkhangelsk across two oceans, five seas, twice getting into a serious storm and once being attacked by a German submarine.

Arctic Ocean flotilla, 1917
The Minister of the Navy, Rear Admiral Dmitry Verderevsky, wrote in the order for the fleet:

"This brilliant, exceptional in terms of navigation conditions voyage by a small-displacement boat in the autumn of St. 5000 miles through a number of zones where German submarines were located, minefields, etc. clearly demonstrates that officers and sailors, united by mutual respect and devoted to their cause, are not afraid not only of all sorts of obstacles put up by the enemy, but also of the elements themselves... The Motherland will have the right to be proud of the unprecedented in the history of submarine navigation passage of a small-displacement submarine from Italy to Arkhangelsk."

Ivan Riznich was promoted to captain of the 2nd rank and awarded the Order of Vladimir of the 4th degree with swords and a bow.

The October Revolution of 1917 changed both the fate of the submarine and the fate of its captain. From the last entry made in November 1917 in the logbook, it is clear that the submarine is undergoing repairs in Arkhangelsk, spare parts have been stolen, and heating steam has ceased to be supplied to the submarine. Riznich was discharged upon demobilization on April 30, 1918. Further information about his life is fragmentary, some sources contradict each other.

According to some sources, in the summer of 1918, Riznich was the chairman of the board of the diving and rescue party at the port of Arkhangelsk. From November 27, 1918, in the White troops of the Northern Fleet [4]. In June 1919, he was listed in the Arkhangelsk headquarters of the General Staff of the Commander of the White Troops of the Northern Region, in December of the same year - in the commandant's office of the 3rd section of the Murmansk frontline region at Maselskaya station. The last documentary evidence dates back to the beginning of January 1920: Riznich - "komohran-2" in Kandalaksha.

In the "List of Naval Officers of the Northern Region" compiled by the commander of the Onega Flotilla, Captain 1st Rank A. D. Kira-Dinzhan, next to the name of Captain Riznich there is a clarification that "Remained in Russia during the evacuation in the winter of 1920." According to information from another source, he was arrested in the spring of 1920, was under the jurisdiction of a special department of the Onega Flotilla until June, and in September 1920 was listed as belonging to the Khibiny concentration camp. The camp is not mentioned in later files. According to his son's version, recorded in his diary from the words of the captain's second wife, he died in 1920 on the "death barge" sunk by the Reds in the White Sea. There is also a version that he could have died in 1923 in Shanghai while attempting to return one of the Dobroflot steamships to Russia, hijacked there by Admiral Stark, but was identified in the city and shot. However, this version, mentioned in the book by submarine fleet historian Nikolai Cherkashin, is based on rumors and has no documentary evidence.

The Riznich family name was included in the "List of officers of the Russian Imperial Navy whose fate is unknown to the Commission for the clarification of the fleet personnel at the Naval Historical Circle in Paris", compiled by Lieutenant M.S. Stakhevich in the 1930s as an appendix to the Prague "Naval Journal".

Family
Wife Elizaveta Vladimirovna (Polyanskaya). Son Ivan (1908-1998) - artist of the "Lomonosov Porcelain Factory", People's Artist of Russia. Grandsons Ivan and Dmitry became a hydrogeologist and a master in the repair of medical equipment, respectively. S. Volkov reports two sons born in 1906 and 1909.

Second wife - actress of the Alexandrinsky Theater Maria Adrianovna (Bernard).