Sergey Degayev

Sergey Petrovich Degayev (also spelled Degaev; ; 1857 in Moscow – 1921 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was a Russian revolutionary terrorist, Okhrana agent, and the murderer of inspector of secret police Georgy Sudeykin. After emigrating to the United States, Degayev took the name Alexander Pell and became a prominent American mathematician, the founder of school of Engineering at the University of South Dakota. The Dr. Alexander Pell scholarship is named in his honor. His maternal grandfather was a prominent Russian writer, Nikolai Polevoy. His father died in the 1860s,

Degayev had three sisters—Marie, Nathalie, and Elizabeth—and a brother Vladimir, who was seven years his junior. While Marie was much older than Sergey, married early and did not play a large role in the life of the family, Nathalie (after marriage Makletsova) and Elizabeth (Liz) were very close to him. Natalie was a musician, while Elizabeth was a poet. Both sisters were involved in the Narodnaya Volya revolutionary movement. Vladimir was also deeply involved with Narodnaya Volya. As the oldest son, Sergey had to provide financial support for the family. The accusations were never proven, but in 1879, Degayev was nevertheless expelled from the Academia. He briefly served as a military officer and was discharged from the Army with the rank of Staff captain in the same year.

Degayev was enrolled to the Saint Petersburg Institute for Rail Road Engineering in 1880. Degayev was among those arrested in connection with the assassination, but his guilt was not proven; he returned to his institute and received his degree in June 1881.

Sudeykin was an avid supporter of using agent provocateurs inside the revolutionary movements not only to catch the active members but also to instigate quarrels and disputes, spread false rumours, and transmit the opinion that all the leading revolutionaries were spies or provocateurs. He was proud of his successes in recruiting his agents among the revolutionaries claiming that every member of an anti-government movement is either corrupt or naive: the corrupt can always be recruited by promise of money or by threats while the naive can always be recruited by appeal to their idealism.

Leader of Narodnaya Volya and Okhrana Agent In summer 1882, Degayev worked in Tiflis as a railroad engineer and organized Narodnaya Volya circles among Tiflis military officers. He presented himself as a member of the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya although he was not a member at that time. In autumn 1882, most of the Narodnaya Volya members in Tiflis were arrested and Degayev was ordered by the Narodnaya Volya leader Vera Figner to move to Odessa and organize an underground press there. On 18 December 1883 Degayev and the whole of his group was arrested. At any rate the agreement with Sudeykin provided a handsome monetary compensation for Degayev: 300 Russian roubles monthly plus 1000 roubles for each trip abroad.

Sudeykin staged Degayev's escape from prison. Information obtained from Degayev allowed the Okhrana to arrest the leader of Narodnaya Volya Vera Figner, to almost completely destroy the military wing of the organization, to arrest almost all members in the Tiflis, Nikolaev, and Kharkov organizations. Information obtained from Degayev and from subsequent arrests allowed police to assure the tsar that his coronation ceremony would be safe. Alexander III was crowned on 27 May 1883.

Inspired by Alexandre Dumas's novel The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, Sudeykin sent Degayev to Switzerland to lure two remaining Narodnaya Volya leaders, Lev Tikhomirov and Peter Lavrov, to Russia to be arrested. Tikhomirov and Lavrov suspected foul play and refused to move but kept their suspicions to themselves for a while. Trying to deflect suspicions from Degayev, Sudeykin decided to sacrifice police informer Fyodor Shkryaba, a member of Narodnaya Volya recruited by the Okhrana who still provided information of low interest to the Okhrana. Sudeykin planted evidence of Shkryaba being an informant and Narodnaya Volya blamed all the recent arrests on Shkryaba. Subsequently, Degayev organized the assassination of Shkryaba.

Toward the middle of 1883, Sudeykin and Degayev established quite friendly relations. Sudeykin regularly visited the apartment of his agent and even used the apartment for his extramarital affairs. Sometimes they had wagers: once, Degayev announced that there was a person of interest to police in Saint Petersburg at the moment and claimed that Sudeykin would not be able to catch him without Degayev's help. Sudeykin answered that he had enough agents besides Degayev. The pair had a monetary bet that Sudeykin would not be able to effect an arrest: Sudeykin lost.

The conspirators planned to get Sudeykin to visit Degayev's apartment and to kill him there. Degayev insisted that because of Sudeykin's great physical strength and his great ability with guns, their only chance was to shoot Sudeykin unexpectedly. For some reason Sudeykin twice missed his appointed meetings (6 December 1883 and 13 December 1883). To lure Sudeykin to the next meeting Degayev told him a story that he had a woman from Narodnaya Volya staying in his apartment who had planned to assassinate the tsar but who could possibly be persuaded to become an Okhrana agent. Sudeykin came on 16 December accompanied by his nephew, another secret police officer, Nikolay (Koka) Sudovsky. Degayev invited Sudeykin to the bedroom to be introduced to the woman and in the passageway between the dining room and the bedroom, near the watercloset, shot him in the back. Mortally wounded, Sudeykin cried to his nephew: "Koka, take your gun and help me!" But Koka ran out of the apartment. While he was struggling with the locks trying to open the door Konashevich came from behind and with several blows of a crowbar cracked Sudovsky's skull. Unexpectedly Sudeykin was able to stand up and walk to the dining room. There he was shot by Starodvorsky. Degayev (and later Konashevich) ran away from the apartment without waiting for the end of the ordeal. Degayev was sure that his accomplices had been ordered to kill him after Sudeykin was killed. The gunshots and cries were heard all across the building; however, when the concierge reported to the local police they told him that they had instructions not to interfere with the apartment whatever happened there. The apartment was searched only the next day after Sudeykin's servant reported that his master had not returned at the expected hour. Rushing to the apartment police found the dying Koka and dead Sudeykin. After his naturalization Alexander (Sergey) took the name Alexander Pell and his wife took the name Emma Pell.

Dr. Alexander Pell scholarship

In 1952, Anna Johnson Pell Wheeler established the Dr. Alexander Pell scholarship. The fund continues to operate. It is given to prominent undergraduates majoring in mathematics.