Peter III Peasants' War 1773 1775. Pugachev's uprising

NOU VPO Far East Institute of International Business

Faculty "Management of the organization"

TEST

In the discipline "National History"

SUBJECT: "Peasants' War under the leadership of E. Pugachev "

Completed by: student gr. 319-M

Panorevinko Yu.S.

Code 09-m-07

Checked by: Ph.D., Associate Professor

Gridunova A.N.

Khabarovsk2010

Introduction…………………………………………….………………………3

Decrees of Catherine II on the peasant issue in the 60s……….5

Causes, driving forces, features of the peasant war led by E. Pugachev, its results………………………………6

Conclusion……………………………………………………………13

References…………………………………………………...14

INTRODUCTION

Peasant War 1773-1775 under the leadership of E. I. Pugachev, it was the most powerful armed uprising of the working masses of feudal Russia against the regime of feudal exploitation and political lawlessness. It covered a vast territory in the southeast of the country (Orenburg, Siberian, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Astrakhan provinces), where 2 million 900 thousand male inhabitants lived, in their mass consisting of peasants of various categories and nationalities. The uprising was the result of deepening crises in the socio-economic life of the country, accompanied by the intensification of feudal and national oppression of the working masses and the aggravation of class relations.

The deep antagonism between the oppressed population of the country and the ruling elite manifested itself in various forms of class uprisings. The culmination of the people's struggle was the performance of Pugachev, which quickly grew into a broad peasant war. Its main events unfolded in the Southern Urals. The reasons for this should be sought in the socio-economic and political history of the region.

Objectively, the uprising was directed against Russian statehood. The ideal was seen in the Cossack-peasant, "free" state with its peasant tsar, to make everyone eternal Cossacks, to grant the land, freedom, land, forest, hay, fish lands. As the saying goes, “grant a cross and a beard”, exemption from recruitment sets and extortions, execute nobles, landowners and unrighteous judges.

This topic has been sufficiently studied and covered by such historians as Yuri Aleksandrovich Limonov, Vladimir Vasilyevich Mavrodin, Viktor Ivanovich Buganov.

Nevertheless, the topic that I chose for the test has not lost its relevance even after 230 years have passed since the beginning of the uprising. Even now, in our time, problems do not cease to arise related to the correctness of leadership, the meaningfulness of the actions of our government, which leads to protests, rallies, demonstrations in defense of their rights, freedoms and interests. Probably, there will never be such a government that would satisfy the interests of all sections of the population. Especially in Russia, where the tax burden often exceeds the wealth of the bulk of the population living below the poverty line.

An attempt to understand what were the prerequisites that prompted such a large, geographically dispersed number of people, different in their class composition and interests, will be my course work, in which, after considering all the facts and events in stages, we can conclude what caused and why the uprising did not lead to the victory of the rebels.

Decrees of Catherine II on the peasant question in the 60s.

In the early 60s of the eighteenth century. The situation in the country was due to several main factors. First of all, among them it is worth noting the growth of peasant unrest. Catherine II was forced to admit that at the time of her coming to power, up to one and a half thousand landlord and monastery peasants “departed from obedience” (“factory and monastery peasants were almost all in obvious disobedience to the authorities and landlords began to join them in places”). And all of them, in the words of the empress, "should have been put to death." Among the peasants, various kinds of forged manifestos and decrees were especially widespread, by virtue of which the peasants refused to work for their former masters.
The policy of "enlightened absolutism" did not help to improve the position of numerous state peasants. The ferocious laws that brought the whip and whip, prison and exile, hard labor and recruitment to the people, constituted the most characteristic shadow side of this policy. All this could not but cause a constant protest of the oppressed masses, the end result of which was open armed uprisings of the peasants.

Serfdom already at the beginning of the reign reached its apogee. In the 60s, a series of decrees were issued that deprived the peasants of any minimum rights: they were forbidden to own real estate, take contracts and farms, act as guarantors, trade without special permission, leave their place of residence without written permission. In 1765, the landowners received the right to exile the peasants to hard labor, and the peasants were forbidden to complain about the landowners, their complaints were considered a false denunciation, and the one who filed it was subject to severe punishment.

Causes, driving forces, features of the peasant war led by E. Pugachev, its results.

The continuous strengthening of serfdom and the growth of duties during the first half of the 18th century provoked fierce resistance from the peasants. Flight was its main form. The fugitives went to the Cossack regions, to the Urals, to Siberia, to Ukraine, to the northern forests.

Often they created "robber gangs", which not only robbed on the roads, but also smashed the landowners' estates, and destroyed documents for the ownership of land and serfs.

More than once the peasants openly revolted, seized the landowner's property, beat and even killed their masters, resisted the troops that pacified them. Often the rebels demanded that they be transferred to the category of palace or state peasants.

Unrest of working people became more frequent, striving to return from factories to their native villages, and, on the other hand, seeking better working conditions and higher salaries.

The frequent repetition of popular demonstrations, the bitterness of the rebels testified to the trouble in the country, to the impending danger.

The same was said about the spread of imposture. Applicants to the throne declared themselves either the son of Tsar Ivan, then Tsarevich Alexei, or Peter II. There were especially many "Peters III" - six before 1773. This was due to the fact that Peter III eased the position of the Old Believers, tried to transfer the monastic peasants to the state, and also to the fact that he was overthrown by the nobles. (The peasants believed that the emperor suffered for caring for the common people). However, only one of the many impostors managed to seriously shake the empire.

In 1773, another "Peter III" appeared in the Yaitsky (Ural) Cossack army. The Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev declared himself to be them.

E. Pugachev's uprising was the largest in Russian history. In the domestic historiography of the Soviet period, it was called the Peasant War. The Peasant War was understood as a major uprising of the peasantry and other lower strata of the population, covering a significant territory, leading to the actual split of the country into a part controlled by the government and a part controlled by the rebels, threatening the very existence of the feudal-serfdom system. During the Peasant War, rebel armies are created, leading a long struggle with government troops. IN last years the term "Peasant War" is used relatively rarely, researchers prefer to write about the Cossack-peasant uprising led by E.I. Pugachev. However, most experts agree that of all the peasant uprisings in Russia, it is the Pugachev uprising that can most justifiably claim the name "Peasant War".

What were the reasons for the uprising, the war?

The dissatisfaction of the Yaik Cossacks with the measures of the government aimed at the elimination of their privileges. In 1771, the Cossacks lost their autonomy, lost their right to traditional trades (fishing, salt extraction). In addition, discord grew between the rich Cossack " senior and the rest of the "army".

Strengthening the personal dependence of the peasants on the landowners, the growth of state taxes and property duties, caused by the beginning of the development of market relations and serf legislation in the 60s.

Difficult living and working conditions for working people, as well as bonded peasants in the factories of the Urals.

Inflexible national policy government in the Middle Volga region.

The socio-psychological atmosphere in the country, heated up under the influence of the hopes of the peasantry that, after the liberation of the nobles from compulsory service to the state, their emancipation would begin. These aspirations gave rise to rumors that the "manifesto on the freedom of the peasants" had already been prepared by the tsar, but the "evil nobles" decided to hide it and made an attempt on the life of the emperor. However, he miraculously escaped and is only waiting for the moment to appear before the people and lead them to fight for Truth and return the throne. It was in this atmosphere that impostors appeared, posing as Peter III.

The deterioration of the economic situation in the country in connection with the Russian-Turkish war.

In 1772, there was an uprising on Yaik with the aim of removing the ataman and a number of foremen. The Cossacks resisted the punitive troops. After the rebellion was suppressed, the instigators were exiled to Siberia, and the military circle was destroyed. The situation on Yaik escalated to the limit. Therefore, the Cossacks enthusiastically greeted the "emperor" Pugachev, who promised to favor them with "rivers, seas and herbs, monetary salaries, lead and gunpowder and all liberty." On September 18, 1773, with a detachment of 200 Cossacks, Pugachev set out for the capital of the army - the Yaitsky town. The military teams sent against him, almost in full force, went over to the side of the rebels. And yet, having about 500 people, Pugachev did not dare to storm the fortified fortress with a garrison of 1000 people. Bypassing it, he moved up the Yaik, capturing the small fortresses lying on the way, the garrisons of which poured into his army. Massacres were carried out on the nobles and officers.

October 5, 1773 Pugachev approached Orenburg - a well-fortified provincial city with a garrison of 3.5 thousand people with 70 guns. The rebels had 3 thousand people and 20 guns. The assault on the city was unsuccessful, the Pugachevites began the siege. Governor I.A. Reinsdorp did not dare to attack the rebels, not relying on his soldiers.

A detachment of General V.A. was sent to help Orenburg. Kara numbering 1.5 thousand people and 1200 Bashkirs, led by Salavat Yulaev. However, the rebels defeated Kara, and S. Yulaev went over to the side of the impostor. Pugachev was joined by 1200 soldiers, Cossacks and Kalmyks from the detachment of Colonel Chernyshev (the colonel himself was captured and hanged). Only Brigadier Corfu managed to safely escort 2,500 soldiers to Orenburg. To Pugachev, who had set up his headquarters in Berd, five miles from Orenburg, reinforcements were continuously coming: Kalmyks, Bashkirs, mining workers of the Urals, ascribed peasants. The number of his troops exceeded 20 thousand people. True, most of them were armed only with edged weapons, and even spears. The level of combat training of this heterogeneous crowd was also low. However, Pugachev sought to give his army a semblance of organization. He established the "Military Collegium", surrounded himself with guards. He assigned ranks and titles to his associates. Ural artisans Ivan Beloborodov and Afanasy Sokolov (Khlopusha) became colonels, and the Cossack Chika-Zarubin turned into "Count Chernyshev".

The expansion of the uprising seriously worried the government. General-in-chief A.I. is appointed commander of the troops sent against Pugachev. Bibikov. Under his command were 16 thousand soldiers and 40 guns. At the beginning of 1774, Bibikov's troops launched an offensive. In March, Pugachev was defeated near the Tatishchev fortress, and Lieutenant Colonel Mikhelson defeated the troops of Chika-Zarubin near Ufa. The main army of Pugachev was practically destroyed: about 2 thousand rebels were killed, more than 4 thousand were wounded or captured. The government announced the suppression of the rebellion.

However, Pugachev, who had no more than 400 people left, did not lay down his arms, but went to Bashkiria. Now the Bashkirs and mining workers became the main support of the movement. At the same time, many Cossacks moved away from Pugachev as he moved away from their native places.

Despite failures in clashes with government troops, the ranks of the rebels grew. In July, Pugachev brought a 20,000-strong army near Kazan. After the capture of Kazan, Pugachev intended to move on Moscow. On July 12, the rebels managed to take the city, but they failed to capture the Kazan Kremlin. In the evening, Michelson's troops pursuing Pugachev came to the aid of the besieged. In a fierce battle, Pugachev was again defeated. Of the 20 thousand of his supporters, 2 thousand were killed, 10 thousand were captured, about 6 thousand fled. With 2,000 survivors, Pugachev crossed over to the right bank of the Volga and turned south, hoping to revolt the Don.

“Pugachev fled, but his flight seemed like an invasion,” wrote A.S. Pushkin. Having crossed the Volga, Pugachev found himself in the areas of landownership, where he was supported by a mass of serfs. It was now that the uprising took on the character of a genuine peasant war. Throughout the Volga region, noble estates were on fire. Approaching Saratov, Pugachev again had 20 thousand people.

Panic broke out in the capital. In the Moscow province, they announced a meeting of the militia against the impostor. The Empress announced that she intended to stand at the head of the troops heading against Pugachev. General-in-chief P.I. Panin was appointed to replace the deceased Bibikov, giving him the widest powers. A.V. was called from the army. Suvorov.

Meanwhile, the rebel troops were far from being as powerful as a year ago. They now consisted of peasants who did not know military affairs. In addition, their detachments acted more and more fragmented. Having dealt with the master, the peasant considered the task completed and was in a hurry to manage the land. Therefore, the composition of Pugachev's army changed all the time. In its wake, government troops relentlessly followed. In August, Pugachev besieged Tsaritsyn, but was overtaken and defeated by Michelson, losing 2 thousand people killed and 6 thousand prisoners. With the remnants of his adherents, Pugachev crossed the Volga, deciding to return to Yaik. However, the Yaik Cossacks who accompanied him, realizing the inevitability of defeat, handed him over to the authorities.

Escorted by Suvorov to Moscow, Pugachev was interrogated and tortured for two months, and on January 10, 1775, he was executed along with four associates on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The uprising was put down.

The peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev ended in the defeat of the rebels. It suffered from all the weaknesses that are inevitably inherent in peasant uprisings: vagueness of goals, spontaneity, fragmentation of the movement, the absence of a truly organized, disciplined and trained military force.

Spontaneity affected primarily in the absence of a well-thought-out program. Not to mention the rank and file of the rebels, even the leaders, not excluding Pugachev himself, did not clearly and definitely imagine the order that would be established if they won.

But, despite the naive monarchism of the peasants, the anti-serfdom orientation of the Peasant War is clear. The slogans of the rebels are much clearer than in previous peasant wars and uprisings.

The leaders of the uprising did not have a unified plan of action, which was clearly reflected during the second offensive of government troops in January-March 1774. The rebel detachments were scattered over a vast territory and often acted completely independently, isolated from each other. Therefore, despite the heroism shown, they were individually defeated by government troops.

However, this does not detract from the enormous progressive significance of the uprising. The Peasant War of 1773-1775 dealt a serious blow to the feudal serf system, it undermined its foundations, shook the age-old foundations and contributed to the development of progressive ideas among the Russian intelligentsia. Which subsequently led to the liberation of the peasants in 1861.

The peasant war, in principle, could win, but could not create a new just system, which its participants dreamed of. After all, the rebels did not represent him otherwise than in the form of a Cossack freemen, impossible on the scale of the country.

Pugachev's victory would mean the extermination of the only educated stratum - the nobility. This would cause irreparable damage to culture, would undermine the state system of Russia, would create a threat to its territorial integrity. On the other hand, the Peasants' War forced the landlords and the government, having dealt with the insurgents, to moderate the degree of exploitation. So, wages were significantly increased at the Ural factories. But the unrestrained growth of duties could lead to the massive ruin of the peasant economy, and after it - to the general collapse of the country's economy. The bitterness and mass nature of the uprising clearly showed the ruling circles that the situation in the country required changes. The result of the peasant war was new reforms. Thus, popular indignation led to the strengthening of the system against which it was directed.

The memory of "Pugachev" firmly entered the consciousness of both the lower classes and the ruling strata. The Pugachevs tried to avoid the Decembrists in 1825. The associates of Alexander II also remembered her when, in 1861, they made a historic decision to abolish serfdom.

CONCLUSION.

The Peasant War suffered a defeat, inevitable for the actions of the peasantry in the era of feudalism, but it dealt a blow to the foundations of serfdom. The reasons for the defeat of the Peasants' War were rooted in the spontaneity and fragmentation of the movement, in the absence of a clearly conscious program of struggle for a new social system. Pugachev and his Military Collegium were unable to organize an army to successfully fight the government forces. The ruling class and the state opposed the spontaneous action of the people with the regular army, the administrative and police apparatus, finances, and the church; they also received significant support from the nascent Russian bourgeoisie (factories, manufacturers, merchants). After the Peasant War, the government of Catherine II, in order to prevent new peasant uprisings, strengthened the local state apparatus, strengthening its punitive capabilities. To ease the acuteness of the peasant question, separate measures were taken in the field of economic policy. The regime of aristocratic reaction that was established after the Peasant War, however, could not suppress the peasant movement in the country, which especially intensified at the end of the 18th century. Under the influence of the Peasant War, the formation of an anti-serfdom ideology in Russia took place.

The uprising prompted the government to improve the system of government, completely eliminate the autonomy of the Cossack troops. The Yaik River was renamed to r. Ural. It showed the illusory nature of ideas about the advantages of patriarchal peasant self-government, since. spontaneous peasant uprisings took place under the leadership of the community. The performance of the peasants influenced the development of Russian social thought and the spiritual life of the country. The memory of the "Pugachevism" and the desire to avoid it became one of the factors in the government's policy and, as a result, pushed him later to mitigate and abolish serfdom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Buganov V.I., Pugachev. - M .: Moscow worker, 1983 / Buganov V.I., Pugachev.

Muratov H. I. Peasant war under the leadership of E. I. Pugachev. - M. / Buganov V.I., Politizdat, 1970

Eidelman N. Ya. Your eighteenth century. - M. / Eidelman N. Ya. Artist. Lit., 1991

2. Move Peasant wars... Conclusion Peasant war under leadership E.I. Pugacheva ...

1. Peasant war under leadership E.I. Pugacheva

   Test work >> Historical figures

   Year. PEASANT WAR UNDER LEADERSHIP E.I. PUGACHEVA Reasons peasant wars. Start peasant wars. The reaction of the king... Peasant war in Russia in 1773-1775. Insurrection Pugacheva, vol. 2, 3, L., 1966-70; Andrushchenko A. I., Peasant war ...

2. Peasant war under the leadership of E.I. Pugacheva

   Abstract >> History

   Domestic history" on the topic: " Peasant war under the leadership of E.I. Pugachev" Checked by: Zorina Raisa Fedorovna Author ... Conclusion List of used literature Introduction Peasant war under leadership Emelyan Pugacheva (or just...

3. Peasant wars (2)

   Abstract >> Historical figures

   Kazakov. She reached her apogee in peasant war under leadership E.I. Pugacheva. On Yaik, where in September ... part of the population of Russia. Members peasant wars IN peasant war under leadership Pugachev took part in various ...

Pugachev's uprising (peasant war) 1773-1775 under the leadership of Emelyan Pugachev - the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks, which grew into a full-scale war.

Rationalism and disregard for tradition, so characteristic of the imperial regime, alienated the masses from it. The Pugachev uprising was the latest and most serious in a long chain of uprisings that took place on the southeastern borders of the Russian state, in that open and difficult to define region where the Old Believers and fugitives from the imperial authorities lived side by side with non-Russian steppe tribes and where the Cossacks who defended royal fortresses, still dreamed of the return of former liberties.

Causes of the Pugachev uprising

At the end of the 18th century, the control of official authorities in this area became more and more tangible. In general, the Pugachev uprising can be seen as the last - but most powerful - desperate impulse of people whose way of life was incompatible with a clearly defined and well-defined state power. The nobles received land in the Volga and Trans-Volga regions, and for many peasants who had lived there for a long time, this meant serfdom. Peasants from other regions of the country also settled there.

The landowners, wishing to increase their income and trying to take advantage of the opening opportunities in trade, increased the quitrent or replaced it with corvée. Soon after the accession of Catherine, these duties, still unusual for many, were fixed in the course of the census and measurement of the land. With the advent of market relations in the Volga territories, the pressure on more traditional and less productive activities increased.

A special group of the population of this region was made up of odnodvortsy, descendants of peasant soldiers sent to the Volga borders in the 16th-17th centuries. Most of the odnodvortsev were Old Believers. Remaining theoretically free people, they suffered greatly from economic rivalry from the nobles, and at the same time they were afraid of losing their independence and falling into the hard class of state peasants.

How it all began

The uprising began among the Yaik Cossacks, whose position reflected the changes brought about by increasingly intrusive state intervention. They have long enjoyed relative freedom, which made it possible to go about their own business, elect leaders, hunt, fish and raid the regions adjacent to the lower Yaik (Urals) in exchange for recognizing the power of the king and providing, if necessary, certain services.

The change in the status of the Cossacks occurred in 1748, when the government ordered the creation of the Yaik army from the 7 defense regiments of the so-called Orenburg line, which was built in order to separate the Kazakhs from the Bashkirs. Some of the Cossack foremen favorably accepted the creation of the army, in the hope of securing a solid status within the framework of the "Table of Ranks", but for the most part, ordinary Cossacks opposed joining the Russian army, considering this decision a violation of freedom and a violation of Cossack democratic traditions.

The Cossacks were also alarmed that in the army they would become ordinary soldiers. Suspicion intensified when, in 1769, to fight the Turks, it was proposed to form a certain “Moscow Legion” from small Cossack troops. This meant wearing a military uniform, training and, worst of all, shaving beards, which caused deep rejection on the part of the Old Believers.

Appearance of Peter III (Pugachev)

Emelyan Pugachev stood at the head of the discontented Yaik Cossacks. Being a Don Cossack by origin, Pugachev deserted from the Russian army and became a fugitive; he was caught several times, but Pugachev always managed to escape. Pugachev called himself Emperor Peter III, who allegedly managed to escape; he spoke out in defense of the old faith. Perhaps Pugachev went for such a trick at the prompt of one of the Yaik Cossacks, but accepted the proposed role with conviction and panache, becoming a figure not subject to anyone's manipulations.

The appearance of Peter III revived the hopes of peasants and religious dissidents, and some of the measures taken by Yemelyan as tsar strengthened them. Yemelyan Pugachev expropriated church lands, elevating monastic and church peasants to the more preferable rank of state; banned the purchase of peasants by non-nobles and stopped the practice of assigning them to factories and mines. He also eased the persecution of the Old Believers and granted forgiveness to schismatics who voluntarily returned from abroad. Exemption of nobles from compulsory public service, which did not bring direct benefits to the serfs, nevertheless gave rise to expectations of similar relief for themselves.

Pugachev's court. Painting by V.G. Perov

Be that as it may, regardless of politics, the unexpected removal of Peter III from the throne aroused the strongest suspicions among the peasants, especially since his successor was a German woman, who, moreover, was not Orthodox, as many thought. Pugachev was not the first to make a name for himself by assuming the identity of the injured and hiding Tsar Peter, ready to lead the people to restore the true faith and the return of traditional freedoms. From 1762 to 1774, about 10 such figures appeared. Pugachev became the most visible person, partly because of the wide support given, partly because of his abilities; besides, he was lucky.

Pugachev's popularity largely increased due to the fact that he appeared in the form of an innocent victim, who humbly accepted the removal from the throne and left the capital in order to wander among his people, knowing their suffering and hardships. Pugachev declared that he had allegedly already visited Constantinople and Jerusalem, confirming his holiness and power by contacts with the "Second Rome" and the place of Christ's death.

The circumstances under which Catherine came to power really made her question her legitimacy. Dissatisfaction with the Empress further intensified when she canceled some of the popular decrees of her ex-husband, curtailing the freedom of the Cossacks and further reducing the already meager rights of serfs, depriving them, for example, of the opportunity to submit petitions to the sovereign.

The course of the uprising

Pugachev's uprising is usually divided into three stages.

The first stage - lasted from the beginning of the uprising until the defeat at the Tatishcheva fortress and the lifting of the siege of Orenburg.

The second stage was marked by a campaign to the Urals, then to Kazan and the defeat under it from Michelson's troops.

The beginning of the third stage is the crossing to the right bank of the Volga and the capture of many cities. The end of the stage is the defeat at Cherny Yar.

First stage of the uprising

Pugachev approached the Yaik town with a detachment of 200 people, there were 923 regular troops in the fortress. An attempt to take the fortress by storm failed. Pugachev left the Yaitsky town and headed up the Yaitsky fortified line. The fortresses surrendered one by one. The advanced detachments of the Pugachevites appeared near Orenburg on October 3, 1773, but the governor Reinsdorp was ready for defense: the ramparts were repaired, the garrison of 2,900 people was put on alert. One thing that the major general missed was that he did not provide the garrison and the population of the city with food supplies.

A small detachment from the rear units under the command of Major General Kara was sent to suppress the uprising, while Pugachev near Orenburg had about 24,000 people with 20 guns. Kar wanted to pincer the Pugachevites and divided his already small detachment.

Pugachev defeated the punishers in parts. At first, the grenadier company, without resisting, joined the ranks of the rebels. After that, on the night of November 9, Kar was attacked and fled 17 miles from the rebels. It all ended with the defeat of the detachment of Colonel Chernyshev. 32 officers, led by a colonel, were captured and executed.

This victory played a bad joke on Pugachev. On the one hand, he was able to strengthen his authority, and on the other hand, the authorities began to take him seriously and sent entire regiments to suppress the rebellion. Three regiments of the regular army under the command of Golitsyn met in battle with the Pugachevites on March 22, 1774 in the Tatishcheva fortress. The assault lasted for six hours. Pugachev was defeated and fled to the Ural factories. On March 24, 1774, detachments of rebels who besieged Ufa, near Chesnokovka, were defeated.

Second phase

The second stage was distinguished by some features. A significant part of the population did not support the rebels. The Pugachev detachments arriving at the plant confiscated the factory treasury, robbed the factory population, destroyed the factory, and committed violence. The Bashkirs stood out in particular. Often the factories offered resistance to the rebels, organizing self-defense. 64 factories joined the Pugachevites, and 28 opposed him. In addition, the superiority in strength was on the side of the punishers.

May 20, 1774 - the Pugachevites captured the Troitskaya fortress with 11-12,000 people and 30 cannons. The next day, Pugachev was overtaken by General de Colong and won the battle. On the battlefield, 4,000 were killed and 3,000 were taken prisoner. Pugachev himself with a small detachment went to European Russia.

In the Kazan province, he was greeted with bells and bread and salt. The army of Emelyan Pugachev was replenished with new forces and near Kazan on July 11, 1774 already numbered 20,000 people. Kazan was taken, only the Kremlin held out. Mikhelson hurried to the rescue of Kazan, who was able to defeat Pugachev once again. And again Pugachev fled. 1774, July 31 - his next manifesto was published. This document freed the peasants from serfdom and various taxes. The peasants were urged to destroy the landowners.

Third stage of the uprising

At the third stage, one can already speak of a peasant war that engulfed the vast territory of Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Voronezh provinces. Of the 1,425 nobles who were in the Nizhny Novgorod province, 348 people were killed. It got not only to nobles and officials, but also to the clergy. In Kurmysh district, out of 72 killed, 41 were members of the clergy. In the Yadrinsky district, 38 members of the clergy were executed.

The cruelty of the Pugachevites should in fact be considered bloody and monstrous, but the cruelty of the punishers was no less monstrous. On August 1, Pugachev in Penza, on August 6 he occupied Saratov, on August 21 he approached Tsaritsyn, but could not take him. Attempts to raise the Don Cossacks were unsuccessful. On August 24, the last battle took place, in which Michelson's troops defeated Pugachev's army. He himself ran across the Volga with 30 Cossacks. In the meantime, A.V. arrived at Michelson's headquarters. Suvorov, urgently recalled from the Turkish front.

The capture of Pugachev

On September 15, his associates handed Pugachev over to the authorities. In the town of Yaitsky, Captain-Lieutenant Mavrin made the first interrogations of the impostor, the result of which was the assertion that the uprising was caused not by the evil will of Pugachev and the rampage of the mob, but by the difficult living conditions of the people. At one time, wonderful words were said by General A.I. Bibik, who fought against Pugachev: “It is not Pugachev that is important, it is the general indignation that matters.”

From the town of Yaitsky, Pugachev was taken to Simbirsk. The convoy was commanded by A.V. Suvorov. October 1 arrived in Simbirsk. Here, on October 2, the investigation was continued by P.I. Panin and P.S. Potemkin. The investigators wanted to prove that Pugachev was bribed by foreigners or the noble opposition. It was not possible to break Pugachev's will, the investigation in Simbirsk did not achieve its goal.

November 4, 1774 - Pugachev was taken to Moscow. Here the investigation was led by S.I. Sheshkovsky. Pugachev persistently confirmed the idea of ​​popular suffering as the cause of the uprising. Empress Catherine did not like this very much. She was ready to admit external interference or the existence of a noble opposition, but she was not ready to admit the mediocrity of her government.

The rebels were accused of desecrating Orthodox churches, which was not the case. On December 13, the last interrogation of Pugachev was removed. Court sessions took place in the Throne Room of the Kremlin Palace on December 29-31. January 10, 1775 - Pugachev was executed on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The reaction of the common people to the execution of Pugachev is interesting: "Some Pugach was executed in Moscow, but Pyotr Fedorovich is alive." Pugachev's relatives were placed in the Kexholm fortress. 1803 - freed prisoners from captivity. They all died in different years without offspring. The last to die in 1833 was Pugachev's daughter Agrafena.

The consequences of the Pugachev uprising

Peasant War 1773-1775 became the most massive spontaneous folk performance in Russia. Pugachev seriously frightened the Russian ruling circles Even during the uprising, by order of the government, the house in which Pugachev lived was burned down, and later his native village Zimoveyskaya was moved to another place and renamed Potemkinskaya. The Yaik River, the first center of disobedience and the epicenter of the rebels, was renamed the Urals, and the Yaik Cossacks began to be called the Ural Cossacks. The Cossack Army that supported Pugachev was disbanded and moved to the Terek. The restless Zaporizhzhya Sich, given its rebellious traditions, was liquidated in 1775 without waiting for the next performance. Catherine II ordered the Pugachev Rebellion to be forgotten forever.

When the first major outburst of indignation occurred, and until the uprising of 1772, the Cossacks write petitions to Orenburg and St. Petersburg, send the so-called "winter villages" - delegates from the army with a complaint against the atamans and local authorities. Sometimes they reached their goal, and especially unacceptable atamans changed, but on the whole the situation remained the same. In 1771, the Yaik Cossacks refused to go in pursuit of the Kalmyks who had migrated outside of Russia. General Traubenberg went with a detachment of soldiers to investigate direct disobedience to the order. The result of the punishments carried out by him was the Yaik Cossack uprising of 1772, during which General Traubenberg and the military ataman of Tambov were killed. Troops under the command of General F. Yu. Freiman were sent to suppress the uprising. The rebels were defeated near the Embulatovka River in June 1772; as a result of the defeat, the Cossack circles were finally liquidated, a garrison of government troops was stationed in the Yaik town, and all power over the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the garrison, Lieutenant Colonel I. D. Simonov. The perpetrated massacre of the captured instigators was extremely cruel and made a depressing impression on the army: the Cossacks had never been stigmatized before, their tongues had not been cut out. A large number of participants in the speech took refuge in distant steppe farms, excitement reigned everywhere, the state of the Cossacks was like a compressed spring.

No less tension was present among the heterodox peoples of the Urals and the Volga region. The development of the Urals that began in the 18th century and the active colonization of the lands of the Volga region, the construction and development of military border lines, the expansion of the Orenburg, Yaitsk and Siberian Cossack troops with the allocation of lands that previously belonged to local nomadic peoples, intolerant religious policy led to numerous unrest among the Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Udmurts, Kalmyks (most of the latter, having broken through the Yaik border line, migrated to Western China in 1771).

The situation in the rapidly growing factories of the Urals was also explosive. Starting with Peter, the government solved the problem of labor in metallurgy mainly by assigning state peasants to state-owned and private mining factories, allowing new breeders to buy serf villages and granting an unofficial right to keep fugitive serfs, since the Berg Collegium, which was in charge of the factories , tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and expulsion of all fugitives. At the same time, it was very convenient to take advantage of the lawlessness and hopeless situation of the fugitives, and if someone began to express dissatisfaction with their position, they were immediately handed over to the authorities for punishment. Former peasants resisted forced labor in factories.

Peasants assigned to state and private factories dreamed of returning to their usual village labor, while the situation of peasants in serf estates was little better. The economic situation in the country, which was almost constantly waging one war after another, was difficult, in addition, the gallant age required the nobles to follow latest mods and trends. Therefore, the landlords increase the area of ​​crops, the corvee increases. The peasants themselves become a marketable commodity, they are mortgaged, exchanged, they simply lose by entire villages. On top of this, the Decree of Catherine II of August 22, 1767 on the prohibition of peasants to complain about the landowners followed. In conditions of complete impunity and personal dependence, the slavish position of the peasants is aggravated by whims, whims, or real crimes happening on the estates, and most of them were left without investigation and consequences.

In this situation, the most fantastic rumors about imminent liberty or about the transfer of all peasants to the treasury easily found their way, about the ready decree of the tsar, who was killed by his wife and boyars for this, that the tsar was not killed, but he hides until better times - all of them fell on the fertile ground of general human dissatisfaction with their present position. There was simply no legal opportunity to defend their interests with all groups of future participants in the performance.

The beginning of the uprising

Emelyan Pugachev. Portrait attached to the publication of the "History of the Pugachev rebellion" by A. S. Pushkin, 1834

Despite the fact that the internal readiness of the Yaik Cossacks for the uprising was high, the speech lacked a unifying idea, a core that would rally the hiding and hiding participants in the unrest of 1772. The rumor that Emperor Peter Fedorovich, who had miraculously escaped, appeared in the army (Emperor Peter III, who died during the coup after a six-month reign), instantly spread throughout Yaik.

Few of the Cossack leaders believed in the resurrected tsar, but everyone looked to see if this man was capable of leading, gathering under his banner an army capable of equaling the government. The man who called himself Peter III was Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev - Don Cossack, a native of the Zimoveyskaya village (which had already given Russian history Stepan Razin and Kondraty Bulavin), a participant in the Seven Years' War and the war with Turkey of 1768-1774.

Finding himself in the Trans-Volga steppes in the autumn of 1772, he stopped in Mechetnaya Sloboda and here, from the abbot of the Old Believer skete Filaret, he learned about unrest among the Yaik Cossacks. It is not known for certain where the idea to call himself a tsar was born in his head and what his initial plans were, but in November 1772 he arrived in the Yaitsky town and called himself Peter III at meetings with the Cossacks. Upon returning to the Irgiz, Pugachev was arrested and sent to Kazan, from where he fled at the end of May 1773. In August, he reappeared in the army, at the inn of Stepan Obolyaev, where he was visited by future closest associates - Shigaev, Zarubin, Karavaev, Myasnikov.

In September, hiding from search parties, Pugachev, accompanied by a group of Cossacks, arrived at the Budarinsky outpost, where on September 17 his first decree to the Yaik army was announced. The author of the decree was one of the few literate Cossacks, 19-year-old Ivan Pochitalin, sent by his father to serve the "king". From here, a detachment of 80 Cossacks headed up the Yaik. New supporters joined along the way, so that by the time September 18 arrived at the Yaitsky town, the detachment already numbered 300 people. On September 18, 1773, an attempt to cross the Chagan and enter the city ended in failure, but at the same time a large group of Cossacks, from among those sent by the commandant Simonov to defend the town, went over to the side of the impostor. A second attack by the rebels on September 19 was also repelled with artillery. The rebel detachment did not have its own cannons, so it was decided to move further up the Yaik, and on September 20 the Cossacks camped near the Iletsk town.

A circle was convened here, on which the troops elected Andrei Ovchinnikov as a marching ataman, all the Cossacks swore allegiance to the great sovereign Emperor Peter Fedorovich, after which Pugachev sent Ovchinnikov to the Iletsk town with decrees to the Cossacks: “ And whatever you wish, all benefits and salaries will not be denied to you; and your glory will not expire until forever; and both you and your descendants are the first in my presence, the great sovereign, learn» . Despite the opposition of the Iletsk ataman Portnov, Ovchinnikov convinced the local Cossacks to join the uprising, and they greeted Pugachev with bells and bread and salt.

All Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Pugachev. The first execution took place: according to the complaints of the inhabitants - "he did great offenses to them and ruined them" - Portnov was hanged. A separate regiment was made up of the Iletsk Cossacks, headed by Ivan Tvorogov, the army got all the artillery of the town. The Yaik Cossack Fyodor Chumakov was appointed head of the artillery.

Map of the initial stage of the uprising

After a two-day meeting on further actions, it was decided to send the main forces to Orenburg, the capital of a vast region under the control of the hated Reinsdorp. On the way to Orenburg, there were small fortresses of the Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance of the Orenburg military line. The garrison of the fortresses was, as a rule, mixed - Cossacks and soldiers, their life and service are perfectly described by Pushkin in The Captain's Daughter.

And already on October 5, Pugachev's army approached the city, setting up a temporary camp five miles from it. Cossacks were sent to the ramparts, who managed to convey Pugachev's decree to the troops of the garrison with a call to lay down their arms and join the "sovereign". In response, cannons from the city rampart began shelling the rebels. On October 6, Reinsdorp ordered a sortie, a detachment of 1,500 people under the command of Major Naumov returned to the fortress after a two-hour battle. On October 7, a military council decided to defend behind the walls of the fortress under the cover of fortress artillery. One of the reasons for this decision was the fear of the transition of soldiers and Cossacks to the side of Pugachev. The raid showed that the soldiers fought reluctantly, Major Naumov reported that he had discovered “in his subordinates timidity and fear”.

Together with Karanay Muratov, Kaskin Samarov captured Sterlitamak and Tabynsk, from November 28, the Pugachevites under the command of Ataman Ivan Gubanov and Kaskyn Samarov laid siege to Ufa, from December 14, the siege was commanded by Ataman Chika-Zarubin. On December 23, Zarubin, at the head of a 10,000-strong detachment with 15 cannons, began an assault on the city, but was repulsed by cannon fire and energetic counterattacks from the garrison.

Ataman Ivan Gryaznov, who participated in the capture of Sterlitamak and Tabynsk, having gathered a detachment of factory peasants, captured the factories on the Belaya River (Voskresensky, Arkhangelsk, Bogoyavlensky factories). In early November, he proposed organizing the casting of cannons and cannonballs for them at nearby factories. Pugachev promoted him to colonel and sent him to organize detachments in the Iset province. There he took the Satkinsky, Zlatoustovsky, Kyshtymsky and Kasli factories, Kundravinsky, Uvelsky and Varlamov settlements, the Chebarkul fortress, defeated the punitive teams sent against him, and by January with a detachment of four thousand approached Chelyabinsk.

In December 1773, Pugachev sent Ataman Mikhail Tolkachev with his decrees to the rulers of the Kazakh Younger Zhuz Nurali Khan and Sultan Dusala with an appeal to join his army, but the Khan decided to wait for the development of events, only horsemen of the Sarym Datula family joined Pugachev. On the way back, Tolkachev gathered Cossacks in his detachment in the fortresses and outposts on the lower Yaik and went with them to the Yaitsky town, collecting cannons, ammunition and provisions in the accompanying fortresses and outposts. On December 30, Tolkachev approached the Yaik town, seven miles from which he defeated and captured the Cossack team of foreman N.A. Mostovshchikov sent against him, in the evening of the same day he occupied the ancient district of the city - Kuren. Most of the Cossacks greeted their comrades and joined Tolkachev's detachment, the Cossacks of the senior side, the soldiers of the garrison, led by Lieutenant Colonel Simonov and Captain Krylov, locked themselves in the "retrenchment" - the fortress of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Cathedral, the cathedral itself was its main citadel. Gunpowder was stored in the basement of the bell tower, and cannons and arrows were installed on the upper tiers. It was not possible to take the fortress on the move.

In total, according to rough estimates by historians, by the end of 1773 there were from 25 to 40 thousand people in the ranks of the Pugachev army, more than half of this number were Bashkir detachments. To control the troops, Pugachev created the Military Collegium, which served as an administrative and military center and conducted extensive correspondence with remote areas of the uprising. A. I. Vitoshnov, M. G. Shigaev, D. G. Skobychkin and I. A. Tvorogov were appointed judges of the Military Collegium, I. Ya. Pochitalin, secretary, M. D. Gorshkov.

The house of the "tsar's father-in-law" of the Cossack Kuznetsov - now the Pugachev Museum in Uralsk

In January 1774, ataman Ovchinnikov led a campaign to the lower reaches of Yaik, to Guryev town, stormed his Kremlin, captured rich trophies and replenished the detachment with local Cossacks, bringing them to Yaitsky town. At the same time, Pugachev himself arrived in the Yaitsky town. He took over the leadership of the protracted siege of the city fortress of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Cathedral, but after an unsuccessful assault on January 20, he returned to the main army near Orenburg. At the end of January, Pugachev returned to the Yaitsky town, where a military circle was held, on which N. A. Kargin was chosen as the military chieftain, and A. P. Perfilyev and I. A. Fofanov as foremen. At the same time, the Cossacks, wanting to finally intermarry the tsar with the army, married him to the young Cossack woman Ustinya Kuznetsova. In the second half of February and early March 1774, Pugachev again personally led attempts to capture the besieged fortress. On February 19, the bell tower of St. Michael's Cathedral was blown up and destroyed by a mine dig, but each time the garrison managed to repulse the attacks of the besiegers.

Detachments of the Pugachevites under the command of Ivan Beloborodov, who grew up to 3 thousand people on the campaign, approached Yekaterinburg, capturing a number of surrounding fortresses and factories along the way, and on January 20 captured the Demidov Shaitansky plant as the main base of their operations.

The situation in the besieged Orenburg by this time was already critical, famine began in the city. Upon learning of the departure of Pugachev and Ovchinnikov with part of the troops to the Yaitsky town, Governor Reinsdorp decided to make a sortie on January 13 to Berdskaya Sloboda to lift the siege. But the unexpected attack did not work, sentinel Cossacks managed to raise the alarm. The chieftains M. Shigaev, D. Lysov, T. Podurov and Khlopusha, who remained in the camp, led their detachments to the ravine that surrounded the Berdskaya settlement and served as a natural defense line. The Orenburg corps were forced to fight in unfavorable conditions and suffered a severe defeat. With heavy losses, throwing cannons, weapons, ammunition and ammunition, the semi-encircled Orenburg troops hastily retreated to Orenburg under the cover of the city walls, losing only 281 people killed, 13 cannons with all their shells, a lot of weapons, ammunition and ammunition.

On January 25, 1774, the Pugachevites undertook the second and last assault on Ufa, Zarubin attacked the city from the southwest, from the left bank of the Belaya River, and Ataman Gubanov attacked from the east. At first, the detachments were successful and even broke into the outlying streets of the city, but there their offensive impulse was stopped by the defenders' canister fire. Having pulled all the available forces to the places of the breakthrough, the garrison drove out of the city, first Zarubin, and then Gubanov.

In early January, the Chelyabinsk Cossacks rebelled and tried to seize power in the city in the hope of getting help from the detachments of ataman Gryaznov, but were defeated by the city garrison. On January 10, Gryaznov unsuccessfully tried to take Chelyaba by storm, and on January 13, the 2,000-strong corps of General I. A. Dekolong, who approached from Siberia, entered Chelyaba. Throughout January, battles unfolded on the outskirts of the city, and on February 8, Dekolong took it for the best to leave the city to the Pugachevites.

On February 16, Khlopushi's detachment stormed the Iletsk Protection, killing all the officers, taking possession of weapons, ammunition and provisions, and taking with them convicts, Cossacks and soldiers fit for military service.

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasants' War area

When news reached Petersburg about the defeat of the expedition of V. A. Kara and the unauthorized departure of Kara himself to Moscow, Catherine II, by decree of November 27, appointed A. I. Bibikov as the new commander. The new punitive corps included 10 cavalry and infantry regiments, as well as 4 light field teams, hastily sent from the western and northwestern borders of the empire to Kazan and Samara, and besides them, all the garrisons and military units located in the uprising zone, and remnants of the Kara Corps. Bibikov arrived in Kazan on December 25, 1773, and immediately began the movement of regiments and brigades under the command of P. M. Golitsyn and P. D. Mansurov to Samara, Orenburg, Ufa, Menzelinsk, Kungur, besieged by the Pugachev troops. Already on December 29, led by Major K.I. Mufel, the 24th light field team, reinforced by two squadrons of Bakhmut hussars and other units, recaptured Samara. Arapov retreated to Alekseevsk with several dozens of Pugachev’s men who remained with him, but the brigade led by Mansurov defeated his detachments in the battles near Alekseevsk and at the Buzuluk fortress, after which in Sorochinskaya it joined on March 10 with the corps of General Golitsyn, who approached there, advancing from Kazan, defeating the rebels near Menzelinsk and Kungur.

Having received information about the advance of the Mansurov and Golitsyn brigades, Pugachev decided to withdraw the main forces from Orenburg, effectively lifting the siege, and concentrate the main forces in the Tatishchev fortress. Instead of the burnt walls, an ice rampart was built, and all available artillery was assembled. Soon a government detachment of 6500 people and 25 guns approached the fortress. The battle took place on March 22 and was extremely fierce. Prince Golitsyn wrote in his report to A. Bibikov: “The matter was so important that I did not expect such impudence and orders in such unenlightened people in the military craft, as these defeated rebels are”. When the situation became hopeless, Pugachev decided to return to Berdy. His retreat was left to cover the Cossack regiment of Ataman Ovchinnikov. With his regiment, he staunchly defended himself until the cannon charges ran out, and then, with three hundred Cossacks, he managed to break through the troops surrounding the fortress and retreated to the Nizhneozernaya fortress. This was the first major defeat of the rebels. Pugachev lost about 2 thousand people killed, 4 thousand wounded and captured, all artillery and convoy. Among the dead was ataman Ilya Arapov.

Map of the second stage of the Peasants' War

At the same time, the St. Petersburg Carabinieri Regiment under the command of I. Mikhelson, stationed before that in Poland and aimed at suppressing the uprising, arrived in Kazan on March 2, 1774 and, reinforced by cavalry units, was immediately sent to suppress the uprising in the Kama region. On March 24, in a battle near Ufa, near the village of Chesnokovka, he defeated the troops under the command of Chiki-Zarubin, and two days later captured Zarubin himself and his entourage. Having won victories on the territory of the Ufa and Iset provinces over the detachments of Salavat Yulaev and other Bashkir colonels, he failed to suppress the uprising of the Bashkirs as a whole, since the Bashkirs switched to partisan tactics.

Leaving the Mansurov brigade in the Tatishchev fortress, Golitsyn continued his march to Orenburg, where he entered on March 29, while Pugachev, having gathered his troops, tried to break through to the Yaitsky town, but having met government troops near the Perevolotsk fortress, he was forced to turn to the Sakmarsky town, where he decided to give battle to Golitsyn. In the battle on April 1, the rebels were again defeated, over 2800 people were captured, including Maxim Shigaev, Andrey Vitoshnov, Timofey Podurov, Ivan Pochitalin and others. Pugachev himself, breaking away from the enemy pursuit, fled with several hundred Cossacks to the Prechistenskaya fortress, and from there he went beyond the bend of the Belaya River, to the mining region of the Southern Urals, where the rebels had reliable support.

In early April, the brigade of P. D. Mansurov, reinforced by the Izyumsky hussar regiment and the Cossack detachment of the Yaik foreman M. M. Borodin, headed from the Tatishchev fortress to the Yaitsky town. The fortresses of Nizhneozernaya and Rassypnaya, the Iletsk town were taken from the Pugachevites, on April 12 the Cossack rebels were defeated at the Irtets outpost. In an effort to stop the advance of the punishers to their native Yaik town, the Cossacks, led by A. A. Ovchinnikov, A. P. Perfilyev and K. I. Dekhtyarev, decided to meet Mansurov. The meeting took place on April 15, 50 versts east of the Yaitsky town, near the Bykovka River. Having got involved in the battle, the Cossacks could not resist the regular troops, a retreat began, which gradually turned into a stampede. Pursued by the hussars, the Cossacks retreated to the Rubizhny outpost, losing hundreds of people killed, among whom was Dekhtyarev. Gathering people, Ataman Ovchinnikov led a detachment through the deaf steppes to the Southern Urals, to join the troops of Pugachev, who had gone beyond the Belaya River.

On the evening of April 15, when in the Yaik town they learned about the defeat at Bykovka, a group of Cossacks, wanting to curry favor with the punishers, tied up and handed over to Simonov atamans Kargin and Tolkachev. Mansurov entered the Yaitsky town on April 16, finally liberating the city fortress, besieged by the Pugachevites from December 30, 1773. The Cossacks who fled to the steppe could not break through to the main area of ​​the uprising, in May-July 1774, the teams of the Mansurov brigade and the Cossacks of the foreman's side began to search and defeat in the priyaitskaya steppe, near the Uzen and Irgiz rivers, the rebel detachments of F. I. Derbetev, S. L Rechkina, I. A. Fofanova.

In early April 1774, the corps of Second Major Gagrin, who approached from Yekaterinburg, defeated Tumanov's detachment located in Chelyaba. And on May 1, the team of Lieutenant Colonel D. Kandaurov, who approached from Astrakhan, recaptured the Guryev town from the rebels.

On April 9, 1774, AI Bibikov, commander of military operations against Pugachev, died. After him, Catherine II entrusted the command of the troops to lieutenant general F. F. Shcherbatov, as a senior in rank. Offended by the fact that it was not him who was appointed to the post of commander of the troops, sending small teams to the nearest fortresses and villages to conduct investigations and punishments, General Golitsyn with the main forces of his corps stayed in Orenburg for three months. The intrigues between the generals gave Pugachev a much-needed respite, he managed to gather scattered small detachments in the Southern Urals. The pursuit was also suspended by the spring thaw and floods on the rivers, which made the roads impassable.

Ural mine. Painting by the Demidov serf artist V. P. Khudoyarov

On the morning of May 5, Pugachev's 5,000-strong detachment approached the Magnetic Fortress. By this time, Pugachev's detachment consisted mainly of poorly armed factory peasants and a small number of personal Yaik guards under the command of Myasnikov, the detachment did not have a single gun. The beginning of the assault on Magnitnaya was unsuccessful, about 500 people died in the battle, Pugachev himself was wounded in right hand. After withdrawing the troops from the fortress and discussing the situation, the rebels, under the cover of night darkness, made a new attempt and were able to break into the fortress and capture it. As trophies got 10 guns, guns, ammunition. On May 7, detachments of chieftains A. Ovchinnikov, A. Perfilyev, I. Beloborodov and S. Maksimov pulled up to Magnitnaya from different sides.

Heading up the Yaik, the rebels captured the fortresses of Karagai, Petropavlovsk and Stepnoy, and on May 20 they approached the largest Troitskaya. By this time, the detachment consisted of 10 thousand people. During the assault that began, the garrison tried to repulse the attack with artillery fire, but overcoming desperate resistance, the rebels broke into Troitskaya. Pugachev got artillery with shells and stocks of gunpowder, stocks of food and fodder. On the morning of May 21, the insurgents who were resting after the battle were attacked by the Dekolong corps. Taken by surprise, the Pugachevites suffered a heavy defeat, losing 4,000 people killed and the same number wounded and captured. Only one and a half thousand mounted Cossacks and Bashkirs were able to retreat along the road to Chelyabinsk.

Salavat Yulaev, who had recovered from his wound, managed to organize at that time in Bashkiria, east of Ufa, resistance to the Michelson detachment, covering Pugachev's army from his stubborn pursuit. In the battles that took place on May 6, 8, 17, 31, Salavat, although he did not succeed in them, did not allow significant losses to be inflicted on his troops. On June 3, he joined up with Pugachev, by which time the Bashkirs made up two-thirds of the total number of the rebel army. On June 3 and 5, on the Ai River, they gave new battles to Michelson. Neither side achieved the desired success. Retreating north, Pugachev regrouped his forces while Mikhelson withdrew to Ufa to drive off the Bashkir detachments operating near the city and resupply ammunition and provisions.

Taking advantage of the respite, Pugachev headed to Kazan. On June 10, the Krasnoufimskaya fortress was taken, on June 11, a victory was won in the battle near Kungur against the garrison that had made a sortie. Without attempting to storm Kungur, Pugachev turned west. On June 14, the vanguard of his troops under the command of Ivan Beloborodov and Salavat Yulaev approached the Kama town of Ose and blocked the city fortress. Four days later, the main forces of Pugachev came here and started siege battles with the garrison settled in the fortress. On June 21, the defenders of the fortress, having exhausted the possibilities of further resistance, capitulated. During this period, the adventurer merchant Astafy Dolgopolov (“Ivan Ivanov”) appeared to Pugachev, posing as the envoy of Tsarevich Paul and thus deciding to improve his financial situation. Pugachev unraveled his adventure, and Dolgopolov, by agreement with him, acted for some time as a "witness to the authenticity of Peter III."

Having mastered Osa, Pugachev ferried the army across the Kama, took along the way the Votkinsk and Izhevsk ironworks, Yelabuga, Sarapul, Menzelinsk, Agryz, Zainsk, Mamadysh and other cities and fortresses, and in the first days of July approached Kazan.

View of the Kazan Kremlin

A detachment under the command of Colonel Tolstoy came out to meet Pugachev, and on July 10, 12 miles from the city, the Pugachevites won a complete victory. The next day, a detachment of rebels camped near the city. “In the evening, in view of all Kazan residents, he (Pugachev) himself went to look out for the city, and returned to the camp, postponing the attack until the next morning”. On July 12, as a result of the assault, the suburbs and the main districts of the city were taken, the garrison remaining in the city locked itself in the Kazan Kremlin and prepared for the siege. A strong fire began in the city, in addition, Pugachev received news of the approach of Michelson's troops, who were following him on the heels of Ufa, so the Pugachev detachments left the burning city. As a result of a short battle, Mikhelson made his way to the garrison of Kazan, Pugachev retreated across the Kazanka River. Both sides were preparing for the decisive battle, which took place on 15 July. Pugachev's army numbered 25 thousand people, but most of them were lightly armed peasants who had just joined the uprising, Tatar and Bashkir cavalry armed with bows, and a small number of remaining Cossacks. Competent actions of Mikhelson, who first of all hit the Yaik core of the Pugachevites, led to the complete defeat of the rebels, at least 2 thousand people died, about 5 thousand were taken prisoner, among whom was Colonel Ivan Beloborodov.

Announced to the public

We welcome this nominal decree with our royal and paternal
the mercy of all who were formerly in the peasantry and
in the citizenship of the landowners, to be loyal slaves
our own crown; and reward with an ancient cross
and prayer, heads and beards, liberty and freedom
and forever Cossacks, without requiring recruitment kits, capitation
and other monetary taxes, possession of lands, forests,
hayfields and fishing grounds, and salt lakes
without purchase and without quitrent; and we free everyone from the previously committed
from the villains of the nobles and Gradtsk bribe-takers-judges to the peasant and everything
the people of imposed taxes and burdens. And we wish you the salvation of souls
and calm in the light of life, for which we have tasted and endured
from the prescribed villains-nobles, wanderings and considerable disasters.

And how is our name now by the power of the Almighty right hand in Russia
flourishes, for this sake we command this by our nominal decree:
who used to be nobles in their estates and vodchinas - these
opponents of our power and rebellions of the empire and despoilers
peasants, to catch, execute and hang, and to do likewise
how they, not having Christianity in themselves, repaired with you, the peasants.
After the extermination of which opponents and villainous nobles, anyone can
to feel the silence and calm life, which will continue until the century.

Given on July 31st, 1774.

By the grace of God, we, Peter the Third,

emperor and autocrat of the All-Russian and other,

And passing, and passing.

Even before the start of the battle on July 15, Pugachev announced in the camp that he would go from Kazan to Moscow. The rumor of this instantly spread to all the nearest villages, estates and towns. Despite the major defeat of the Pugachev army, the flames of the uprising engulfed the entire western bank of the Volga. Having crossed the Volga at Kokshaisk, below the village of Sundyr, Pugachev replenished his army with thousands of peasants. By this time, Salavat Yulaev with his troops continued fighting near Ufa, the detachments of the Bashkirs in the Pugachev detachment were led by Kinzya Arslanov. On July 20, Pugachev entered Kurmysh, on the 23rd he entered Alatyr without hindrance, after which he headed for Saransk. On July 28, a decree on freedom for the peasants was read out on the central square of Saransk, the residents were given supplies of salt and bread, the city treasury “driving through the city fortress and along the streets ... they threw the mob that had come from different districts”. On July 31, the same solemn meeting awaited Pugachev in Penza. The decrees caused numerous peasant uprisings in the Volga region, in total, scattered detachments operating within their estates numbered tens of thousands of fighters. The movement covered most of the Volga districts, approached the borders of the Moscow province, really threatened Moscow.

The publication of decrees (in fact, manifestos on the liberation of the peasants) in Saransk and Penza is called the culmination of the Peasant War. The decrees made a strong impression on the peasants, on the Old Believers hiding from persecution, on the opposite side - the nobles and on Catherine II herself. The enthusiasm that seized the peasants of the Volga region led to the fact that a population of more than a million people was involved in the uprising. They could not give Pugachev's army anything in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments acted no further than their estate. But they turned Pugachev's campaign along the Volga region into a triumphal procession, with bells ringing, the blessing of the village priest and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. When the army of Pugachev or its individual detachments approached, the peasants knitted or killed their landlords and their clerks, hanged local officials, burned estates, smashed shops and shops. In total, at least 3 thousand nobles and government officials were killed in the summer of 1774.

In the second half of July 1774, when the flames of the Pugachev uprising approached the borders of the Moscow province and threatened Moscow itself, the alarmed empress was forced to agree to the proposal of Chancellor N.I. rebels. General F.F. Shcherbatov was expelled from this post on July 22, and by decree of July 29, Catherine II endowed Panin with emergency powers "in suppressing the rebellion and restoring internal order in the provinces of Orenburg, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod". It is noteworthy that under the command of P.I. Panin, who in 1770 received the Order of St. George I class, distinguished himself in that battle and the Don cornet Emelyan Pugachev.

To speed up the conclusion of peace, the terms of the Kuchuk-Kaynarji peace treaty were relaxed, and the troops released on the Turkish borders - only 20 cavalry and infantry regiments - were withdrawn from the armies for action against Pugachev. As Ekaterina noted, against Pugachev “there are so many troops dressed up that such an army was almost terrible to the neighbors”. It is noteworthy that in August 1774 Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was in the Danubian principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

Suppression of the uprising

After Pugachev's triumphant entry into Saransk and Penza, everyone was expecting his march to Moscow. In Moscow, where the memories of the Plague Riot of 1771 were still fresh, seven regiments were pulled together under the personal command of P.I. Panin. The Moscow governor-general, Prince M.N. Volkonsky, ordered that artillery be placed near his house. The police stepped up surveillance and sent informants to crowded places in order to grab all those who sympathized with Pugachev. Mikhelson, who received the rank of colonel in July and pursued the rebels from Kazan, turned to Arzamas in order to block the road to the old capital. General Mansurov set out from Yaitsky town to Syzran, General Golitsyn - to Saransk. The punitive teams of Mufel and Mellin reported that everywhere Pugachev left rebellious villages behind him and they did not have time to pacify them all. “Not only peasants, but priests, monks, even archimandrites revolt sensitive and insensitive people”. Excerpts from the report of the captain of the Novokhopyorsky battalion Butrimovich are indicative:

“... I went to the village of Andreevskaya, where the peasants kept the landowner Dubensky under arrest to extradite him to Pugachev. I wanted to free him, but the village rebelled and dispersed the team. From that moment I went to the villages of Mr. Vysheslavtsev and Prince Maksyutin, but I also found them under arrest by the peasants, and I freed them, and took them to Verkhniy Lomov; from the village Maksyutin I saw as mountains. Kerensk was on fire, and returning to Verkhniy Lomov, he found out that all the inhabitants, except for the clerks, had rebelled when they learned about the construction of Kerensk. Instigators: one-palace Yak. Gubanov, Matv. Bochkov, and the Streltsy settlement of the tenth Bezborod. I wanted to seize them and introduce them to Voronezh, but the inhabitants not only did not allow me to do so, but they almost put me under their own guard, but I left them and heard the cry of the rioters 2 miles from the city. I don’t know how it all ended, but I heard that Kerensk, with the help of captured Turks, fought off the villain. On my journey everywhere I noticed among the people the spirit of rebellion and a tendency to the Pretender. Especially in the Tanbovsky district, the departments of Prince. Vyazemsky, in economic peasants, who, for the arrival of Pugachev, fixed bridges everywhere and repaired roads. In addition to that village of Lipny, the headman with the tenths, honoring me as an accomplice of the villain, came to me and fell on their knees.

Map of the final stage of the uprising

But Pugachev turned south from Penza. Most historians indicate that Pugachev's plans to attract the Volga and, especially, the Don Cossacks into their ranks are the reason for this. It is possible that another reason was the desire of the Yaik Cossacks, who were tired of fighting and had already lost their main chieftains, to hide again in the remote steppes of the lower Volga and Yaik, where they had already taken refuge once after the uprising of 1772. An indirect confirmation of such fatigue is the fact that it was during these days that a conspiracy of Cossack colonels began to surrender Pugachev to the government in exchange for receiving a pardon.

On August 4, the impostor's army took Petrovsk, and on August 6 surrounded Saratov. The governor with a part of the people along the Volga managed to get to Tsaritsyn and after the battle on August 7 Saratov was taken. Saratov priests in all churches served prayers for the health of Emperor Peter III. Here Pugachev sent a decree to the Kalmyk ruler Tsenden-Darzhe with an appeal to join his army. But by this time, the punitive detachments under the general command of Mikhelson were already literally on the heels of the Pugachevites, and on August 11 the city came under the control of government troops.

After Saratov, they went down the Volga to Kamyshin, which, like many cities before it, met Pugachev with bells and bread and salt. Near Kamyshin in the German colonies, Pugachev's troops clashed with the Astrakhan astronomical expedition of the Academy of Sciences, many of whose members, together with the leader, Academician Georg Lovitz, were hanged along with local officials who had not managed to escape. Lovitz's son, Tobias, later also an academician, managed to survive. Having attached a 3,000-strong detachment of Kalmyks to themselves, the rebels entered the villages of the Volga army Antipovskaya and Karavainskaya, where they received broad support and from where messengers were sent to the Don with decrees on joining the Donets to the uprising. A detachment of government troops approaching from Tsaritsyn was defeated on the Proleika River near the village of Balyklevskaya. Further along the road was Dubovka, the capital of the Volga Cossack Host. Since the Volga Cossacks, led by the ataman, remained loyal to the government, the garrisons of the Volga cities strengthened the defense of Tsaritsyn, where a thousandth detachment of Don Cossacks arrived under the command of the field ataman Perfilov.

"The true image of the rebel and deceiver Emelka Pugachev." Engraving. Second half of the 1770s

On August 21, Pugachev tried to attack Tsaritsyn, but the assault failed. Having received news of the arriving Michelson corps, Pugachev hastened to lift the siege from Tsaritsyn, the rebels moved to the Black Yar. Panic broke out in Astrakhan. On August 24, at the Solenikova fishing gang, Pugachev was overtaken by Mikhelson. Realizing that the battle could not be avoided, the Pugachevites lined up battle formations. On August 25, the last major battle of the troops under the command of Pugachev with the tsarist troops took place. The battle began with a major setback - all 24 guns of the rebel army were repulsed by a cavalry charge. In a fierce battle, more than 2,000 rebels died, among them ataman Ovchinnikov. Over 6,000 people were taken prisoner. Pugachev with the Cossacks, breaking up into small detachments, fled across the Volga. In pursuit of them, search detachments of Generals Mansurov and Golitsyn, the Yait foreman Borodin and the Don Colonel Tavinsky were sent. Not having time for the battle, Lieutenant General Suvorov also wished to participate in the capture. During August-September, most of the participants in the uprising were caught and sent for investigation to Yaitsky town, Simbirsk, Orenburg.

Pugachev fled to Uzen with a detachment of Cossacks, not knowing that since mid-August Chumakov, Curds, Fedulev and some other colonels had been discussing the possibility of earning forgiveness by surrendering the impostor. Under the pretext of facilitating the escape from the chase, they divided the detachment so as to separate the Cossacks loyal to Pugachev along with the ataman Perfilyev. On September 8, near the Bolshoi Uzen River, they pounced and tied Pugachev, after which Chumakov and Curds went to the Yaitsky town, where on September 11 they announced the capture of the impostor. Having received promises of pardon, they notified the accomplices, and on September 15 they delivered Pugachev to the Yaitsky town. The first interrogations took place, one of them was personally conducted by Suvorov, he also volunteered to escort the impostor to Simbirsk, where the main investigation was going on. For the transportation of Pugachev, a cramped cage was made, mounted on a two-wheeled cart, in which, shackled hand and foot, he could not even turn around. In Simbirsk, for five days, he was interrogated by P. S. Potemkin, head of the secret investigative commissions, and Count P. I. Panin, commander of the government's punitive troops.

Perfiliev and his detachment were captured on September 12 after a battle with punishers near the Derkul River.

Pugachev under escort. Engraving from the 1770s

At this time, in addition to scattered centers of the uprising, hostilities in Bashkiria had an organized character. Salavat Yulaev, together with his father Yulai Aznalin, led the rebel movement on the Siberian road, Karanai Muratov, Kachkyn Samarov, Selyausin Kinzin - on Nogaiskaya, Bazargul Yunaev, Yulaman Kushaev and Mukhamet Safarov - in the Bashkir Trans-Urals. They fettered a significant contingent of government troops. In early August, even a new assault on Ufa was undertaken, but as a result of poor organization of interaction between various detachments, it was unsuccessful. Kazakh detachments were alarmed by raids along the entire length of the border line. Governor Reinsdorp reported: “The Bashkirs and Kirghiz do not pacify, the latter are constantly crossing the Yaik, and people are being grabbed from near Orenburg. The local troops are either pursuing Pugachev or blocking his path, and I can’t go against the Kyrgyz, I exhort the Khan and the Saltans. They answered that they could not keep the Kirghiz, whom the whole horde was rebelling.. With the capture of Pugachev, the direction of the liberated government troops to Bashkiria, the transition of the Bashkir foremen to the side of the government began, many of them joined the punitive detachments. After the capture of Kanzafar Usaev and Salavat Yulaev, the uprising in Bashkiria began to wane. Salavat Yulaev gave his last battle on November 20 under the Katav-Ivanovsky plant besieged by him and, after the defeat, was captured on November 25. But individual rebel detachments in Bashkiria continued to resist until the summer of 1775.

Until the summer of 1775, unrest continued in the Voronezh Governorate, in the Tambov District, and along the Khopra and Vorona rivers. Although the detachments operating were small and there was no coordination of joint actions, according to the eyewitness Major Sverchkov, “many landowners, leaving their homes and savings, drive off to remote places, and those who remain in their houses save their lives from threatening death, spend the night in the forests”. Frightened landlords said that “If the Voronezh provincial office does not speed up the extermination of those villainous gangs that turned out to be, then the same bloodshed will inevitably follow as it happened in the past rebellion.”

To bring down the wave of rebellions, punitive detachments began mass executions. In every village, in every town that received Pugachev, on the gallows and "verbs", from which they barely had time to remove the officers, landowners, judges hanged by the impostor, they began to hang the leaders of the riots and the city heads and chieftains of local detachments appointed by the Pugachevites. To enhance the frightening effect, the gallows were mounted on rafts and launched along the main rivers of the uprising. In May, Khlopushi was executed in Orenburg: his head was placed on a pole in the center of the city. During the investigation, the entire medieval set of tested means was used. In terms of cruelty and the number of victims, Pugachev and the government did not yield to each other.

In November, all the main participants in the uprising were transferred to Moscow for a general investigation. They were placed in the building of the Mint at the Iberian Gates of Kitay-Gorod. The interrogations were led by Prince M.N. Volkonsky and Chief Secretary S.I. Sheshkovsky. During interrogation, E. I. Pugachev gave detailed testimony about his relatives, about his youth, about participation in the Don Cossack army in the Seven Years and Turkish Wars, about his wanderings around Russia and Poland, about his plans and intentions, about the course of the uprising. The investigators tried to find out whether the initiators of the uprising were agents of foreign states, or schismatics, or anyone from the nobility. Catherine II showed great interest in the course of the investigation. In the materials of the Moscow investigation, several notes of Catherine II to M.N. Volkonsky were preserved with wishes about the plan in which it is necessary to conduct an inquiry, what issues require the most complete and detailed investigation, which witnesses should be additionally interviewed. On December 5, M. N. Volkonsky and P. S. Potemkin signed a decision to close the investigation, since Pugachev and other persons under investigation could not add anything new to their testimony during interrogations and could neither alleviate nor aggravate their guilt. In a report to Catherine, they were forced to admit that they “... they tried, during this investigation, to find the beginning of the evil undertaken by this monster and his accomplices, or ... to that evil enterprise by mentors. But for all that, nothing else was revealed, somehow, that in all his villainy, the first beginning took its place in the Yaik army..

The execution of Pugachev on Bolotnaya Square. (Drawing by an eyewitness to the execution of A. T. Bolotov)

On December 30, the judges in the case of E. I. Pugachev gathered in the Throne Room of the Kremlin Palace. They heard the manifesto of Catherine II on the appointment of the court, and then the indictment was announced in the case of Pugachev and his associates. Prince A. A. Vyazemsky offered to deliver Pugachev to the next court session. Early in the morning of December 31, he was transported under heavy escort from the casemates of the Mint to the chambers of the Kremlin Palace. At the beginning of the meeting, the judges approved the questions that Pugachev had to answer, after which he was led into the courtroom and forced to kneel. After a formal questioning, he was taken out of the hall, the court made a decision: “Quarter Emelka Pugachev, stick his head on a stake, smash the body parts in four parts of the city and put them on wheels, and then burn them in those places.” The rest of the defendants were divided according to the degree of their guilt into several groups for each of them to receive the appropriate type of execution or punishment. On Saturday, January 10, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, with a huge gathering of people, an execution was carried out. Pugachev behaved with dignity, having ascended to the place of execution, crossed himself on the cathedrals of the Kremlin, bowed on four sides with the words "Forgive me, Orthodox people." Sentenced to quartering E. I. Pugachev and A. P. Perfilyev, the executioner first cut off his head, such was the wish of the empress. On the same day, M. G. Shigaev, T. I. Podurov and V. I. Tornov were hanged. I. N. Zarubin-Chika was sent for execution to Ufa, where he was quartered in early February 1775.

Leaf shop. Painting by the Demidov serf artist P.F. Khudoyarov

The Pugachev uprising caused great damage to the metallurgy of the Urals. 64 of the 129 factories that existed in the Urals fully joined the uprising, the number of peasants assigned to them was 40 thousand people. The total amount of losses from the destruction and downtime of factories is estimated at 5,536,193 rubles. And although the factories were quickly restored, the uprising forced them to make concessions in relation to the factory workers. The chief investigator in the Urals, Captain S.I. Mavrin, reported that the ascribed peasants, whom he considered the leading force of the uprising, supplied the impostor with weapons and joined his detachments, because the breeders oppressed their ascribed, forcing the peasants to travel long distances to the factories, did not allow them engage in arable farming and sell them products at inflated prices. Mavrin believed that decisive measures must be taken to prevent such unrest in the future. Catherine wrote to G.A. Potemkin that Mavrin “what he says about the factory peasants, everything is very thorough, and I think that there is nothing else to do with them, how to buy factories and, when there are state-owned ones, then make the peasants lighter”. On May 19, 1779, a manifesto was issued on general rules the use of assigned peasants at state-owned and particular enterprises, which somewhat limited the breeders in the use of peasants assigned to factories, limited the working day and increased wages.

There were no significant changes in the position of the peasantry.

Studies and collections of archival documents

• Pushkin A. S. "History of Pugachev" (censored title - "History of the Pugachev rebellion")
• Grotto Ya.K. Materials for the history of the Pugachev rebellion (Papers by Kara and Bibikov). Saint Petersburg, 1862
• Dubrovin N. F. Pugachev and his accomplices. An episode from the reign of Empress Catherine II. 1773-1774 According to unpublished sources. T. 1-3. SPb., type. N. I. Skorokhodova, 1884
• Pugachevshchina. Collection of documents.

Volume 1. From the Pugachev archive. Documents, decrees, correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1926. Volume 2. From investigative materials and official correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1929 Volume 3. From the archive of Pugachev. M.-L., Sotsekgiz, 1931

• Peasant War 1773-1775 in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. M., 1973
• Peasant War 1773-1775 on the territory of Bashkiria. Collection of documents. Ufa, 1975
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Chuvashia. Collection of documents. Cheboksary, 1972
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Udmurtia. Collection of documents and materials. Izhevsk, 1974
• Gorban N. V. The peasantry of Western Siberia in the peasant war of 1773-75. // Questions of history. 1952. No. 11.
• Muratov Kh. I. The Peasant War of 1773-1775. in Russia. M., Military Publishing, 1954

Art

Pugachev uprising in fiction

• A. S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter"
• S. A. Yesenin "Pugachev" (poem)
• S. P. Zlobin "Salavat Yulaev"
• E. Fedorov "Stone Belt" (novel). Book 2 "Heirs"
• V. Ya. Shishkov "Emelyan Pugachev (novel)"
• V. I. Buganov "Pugachev" (biography in the series "Life of Remarkable People")
• V. I. Mashkovtsev "Golden Flower - Overcome" (historical novel). - Chelyabinsk, South Ural book publishing house,,.

Cinema

• Pugachev () - feature film. Director Pavel Petrov-Bytov
• Emelyan Pugachev () - historical dilogy: "Slaves of Freedom" and "Will Washed with Blood" directed by Alexei Saltykov
• The Captain's Daughter () - a feature film based on the story of the same name by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
• Russian rebellion () - a historical film based on the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" and "The Story of Pugachev"
• Salavat Yulaev () - feature film. Director Yakov Protazanov

Links

• Bolshakov L. N. Orenburg Pushkin Encyclopedia
• Vaganov M. Major Mirzabek Vaganov's report on his mission to Nurali Khan. March-June 1774 / Communication. V. Snezhnevsky // Russian antiquity, 1890. - T. 66. - No. 4. - S. 108-119. - Under the heading: On the history of the Pugachev rebellion. March - 1774 - June in the steppe of the Kirghiz-Kaisaks.
• Military travel journal of the commander of the punitive corps, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhelson I. I., about the military operations against the rebels in March - August 1774// Peasant war 1773-1775. in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. - M.: Nauka, 1973. - S. 194-223.
• Gvozdikova I. Salavat Yulaev: historical portrait ("Belskie open spaces", 2004)
• Diary of a member of the noble militia of the Kazan province “About Pugachev. His villainous deeds// Peasant war 1773-1775. in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. - M.: Nauka, 1973. - S. 58-65.
• Dobrotvorsky I. A. Pugachev on the Kama // Historical Bulletin, 1884. - T. 18. - No. 9. - P. 719-753.
• Catherine II. Letters from Empress Catherine II to A. I. Bibikov during the Pugachev rebellion (1774) / Soobshch. V. I. Lamansky // Russian archive, 1866. - Issue. 3. - Stb. 388-398.
• Peasant war led by Pugachev on the History of Orenburg region website
• Peasant war led by Pugachev (TSB)
• Kulaginskiy P. N. Pugachevtsy and Pugachev in Tresvyatsky-Yelabug in 1773-1775 / Message P. M. Makarov // Russian antiquity, 1882. - T. 33. - No. 2. - S. 291-312.
• Lopatin. Letter from Arzamas dated September 19, 1774 / Communication. A. I. Yazykov // Russian antiquity, 1874. - T. 10. - No. 7. - S. 617-618. - Under the title: Pugachevshchina.
• Mertvago D. B. Notes of Dmitry Borisovich Mertvago. 1790-1824. - M.: type. Gracheva and K, 1867. - XIV, 340 stb. - App. to the "Russian Archive" for 1867 (Issue 8-9).
• Determination of the Kazan nobility on the assembly of the cavalry corps of troops from their people against Pugachev// Readings in the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University, 1864. - Prince. 3/4. Dep. 5. - S. 105-107.
• Oreus I.I. Ivan Ivanovich Mikhelson, winner of Pugachev. 1740-1807 // Russian antiquity, 1876. - T. 15. - No. 1. - S. 192-209.
• Pugachev sheets in Moscow. 1774 Materials// Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 13. - No. 6. - S. 272-276. , No. 7. - S. 440-442.
• Pugachevshchina. New materials for the history of the Pugachev region// Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 12. - No. 2. - S. 390-394; No. 3. - S. 540-544.

• Collection of documents on the history of the Pugachev uprising on the site Vostlit.info
• Cards: Map of the lands of the Yaik army, the Orenburg Territory and the Southern Urals, Map of the Saratov province (maps of the beginning of the 20th century)

The main cause of popular unrest, including the uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev, was the strengthening of serfdom and the growth of exploitation of all sections of the black population. The Cossacks were unhappy with the government's attack on their traditional privileges and rights. The indigenous peoples of the Volga and Ural regions experienced harassment both from the authorities and from the actions of Russian landowners and industrialists. Wars, famine, epidemics also contributed to popular uprisings. (For example, the Moscow plague riot of 1771 arose as a result of an epidemic of plague brought from the fronts of the Russian-Turkish war.)

MANIFESTO OF "AMPERATOR"

“The autocratic emperor, our great sovereign, Peter Fedorovich of All Russia and others ... In my personal decree, the Yaik army is depicted: how you, my friends, served the former kings to the drop of your blood ... so you will serve me, the great sovereign, for your fatherland Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich ... Wake me, the great sovereign, complained: Cossacks and Kalmyks and Tatars. And which I ... wine were ... in all wines I forgive and favor you: from the top and to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salaries, and lead, and gunpowder, and grain rulers.

IMPOSTERS

In September 1773, the Yaik Cossacks could hear this manifesto "by the miracle of the saved Tsar Peter III." The shadow of "Peter III" in the previous 11 years has repeatedly appeared in Russia. Some daredevils were called Sovereign Pyotr Fedorovich, announced that they wanted, following the freedom of the nobility, to give free rein to the serfs and to favor the Cossacks, working people and all other ordinary people, but the nobles set out to kill them, and they had to hide for the time being. These impostors quickly fell into the Secret Expedition, opened under Catherine II in exchange for the dissolved office of secret search affairs, and their life was cut short on the chopping block. But soon the living “Peter III” appeared somewhere on the outskirts, and the people grabbed hold of the rumor about the new “miraculous salvation of the emperor.” Of all the impostors, only one, the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, managed to kindle the flames of the peasant war and lead the merciless war of the common people against the masters for the "peasant kingdom".

At his headquarters and on the battlefield near Orenburg, Pugachev played the “royal role” perfectly. He issued decrees not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of the “son and heir” of Paul. Often, in public, Emelyan Ivanovich took out a portrait of the Grand Duke and, looking at him, said with tears: “Oh, I feel sorry for Pavel Petrovich, lest the accursed villains torment him!” And on another occasion, the impostor declared: “I myself no longer want to reign, but I will restore the Tsarevich Sovereign to the kingdom.”

"Tsar Peter III" tried to bring order to the rebellious people's element. The rebels were divided into "regiments" headed by "officers" elected or appointed by Pugachev. At 5 versts from Orenburg, in Berd, he made his bet. Under the emperor, a “guard” was formed from his guard. Pugachev's decrees were affixed with the "great state seal". Under the "king" there was a Military Collegium, which concentrated military, administrative and judicial power.

Even Pugachev showed his associates birthmarks - at that time everyone was convinced that the kings had "special royal signs" on their bodies. A red caftan, an expensive hat, a saber and a determined look completed the image of the "sovereign". Although Emelyan Ivanovich's appearance was unremarkable: he was a Cossack of about thirty years old, of medium height, swarthy, his hair was cut in a circle, his face was framed by a small black beard. But he was such a "king" as the peasant's fantasy wanted to see the king: dashing, insanely brave, sedate, formidable and quick to judge the "traitors". He executed and complained...

Executed landowners and officers. Complained ordinary people. For example, the artisan Afanasy Sokolov, nicknamed Khlopusha, appeared in his camp, seeing the “tsar”, he fell to his feet and confessed: he, Khlopusha, was in an Orenburg prison, but was released by Governor Reinsdorf, promising to kill Pugachev for money. "Amperor Peter III" forgives Khlopusha, and even appoints him a colonel. Khlopusha soon became famous as a decisive and successful leader. Pugachev promoted another national leader, Chika-Zarubin, to the earl and called him nothing more than "Ivan Nikiforovich Chernyshev."

Among those granted soon were working people who arrived at Pugachev and ascribed mining peasants, as well as the rebellious Bashkirs, led by a noble young hero-poet Salavat Yulaev. The “king” returned their lands to the Bashkirs. The Bashkirs began to set fire to Russian factories built in their region, while the villages of Russian settlers were destroyed, the inhabitants were cut out almost without exception.

EGG COSSACKS

The uprising began on Yaik, which was no coincidence. Unrest began in January 1772, when the Yaitsky Cossacks with icons and banners came to their "capital" Yaitsky town to ask the tsarist general to remove the ataman who was oppressing them and part of the foreman and restore the former privileges of the Yaitsky Cossacks.

The government at that time fairly pressed the Cossacks of Yaik. Their role as border guards has declined; Cossacks began to be torn away from home, sending them on long trips; the election of atamans and commanders was abolished as early as the 1740s; at the mouth of the Yaik, fishermen set up, by royal permission, barriers that made it difficult for fish to move up the river, which painfully hit one of the main Cossack trades - fishing.

In the town of Yaik, the procession of the Cossacks was shot. The soldier corps, which arrived a little later, suppressed the Cossack indignation, the instigators were executed, the "disobedient Cossacks" fled and hid. But there was no calmness on Yaik, the Cossack region still resembled a powder magazine. The spark that blew him up was Pugachev.

THE BEGINNING OF PUGACHEV

On September 17, 1773, he read out his first manifesto to 80 Cossacks. On the next day, he already had 200 supporters, and on the third - 400. On October 5, 1773, Emelyan Pugachev, with 2.5 thousand associates, began the siege of Orenburg.

While "Peter III" was going to Orenburg, the news of him spread throughout the country. It was whispered in the peasant huts how everywhere the “emperor” was met with “bread and salt”, the bells solemnly hummed in his honor, the Cossacks and soldiers of the garrisons of small border fortresses without a fight open the gates and go over to his side, the “blood-sucking nobles” “king” without he executes delays, and favors the rebels with their things. First, some brave men, and then whole crowds of serfs from the Volga, ran to Pugachev in his camp near Orenburg.

PUGACHEV AT ORENBURG

Orenburg was a well-fortified provincial city, it was defended by 3 thousand soldiers. Pugachev stood near Orenburg for 6 months, but failed to take it. However, the army of the rebels grew, at some moments of the uprising its number reached 30 thousand people.

Major General Kar hurried to the rescue of besieged Orenburg with troops loyal to Catherine II. But his one and a half thousand detachment was defeated. The same thing happened with the military team of Colonel Chernyshev. The remnants of government troops retreated to Kazan and caused panic there among the local nobles. The nobles had already heard about the ferocious reprisals of Pugachev and began to scatter, leaving their houses and property.

The situation was becoming serious. Catherine, in order to maintain the spirit of the Volga nobles, declared herself a "Kazan landowner." Troops began to gather in Orenburg. They needed a commander-in-chief - a talented and energetic person. Catherine II for the sake of benefit could give up her convictions. It was at this decisive moment at the court ball that the empress turned to A.I. Bibikov, whom she did not like for his closeness to her son Pavel and "constitutional dreams", and with an affectionate smile asked him to become the commander-in-chief of the army. Bibikov replied that he had devoted himself to the service of the fatherland and, of course, accepted the appointment. Catherine's hopes were justified. On March 22, 1774, in a 6-hour battle near the Tatishcheva fortress, Bibikov defeated the best forces of Pugachev. 2 thousand Pugachevites were killed, 4 thousand wounded or surrendered, 36 guns were captured from the rebels. Pugachev was forced to lift the siege of Orenburg. The rebellion seemed to be crushed...

But in the spring of 1774, the second part of the Pugachev drama began. Pugachev moved east: to Bashkiria and the mining Urals. When he approached the Trinity Fortress, the easternmost point of the rebel advance, there were 10,000 men in his army. The uprising was overwhelmed by robbery elements. The Pugachevites burned factories, took away cattle and other property from bonded peasants and working people, destroyed officials, clerks, captured "masters" without pity, sometimes in the most savage way. Part of the commoners joined the detachments of the Pugachev colonels, others huddled in detachments around the factory owners, who distributed weapons to their people in order to protect them and their lives and property.

PUGACHEV IN THE VOLGA REGION

Pugachev's army grew at the expense of detachments of the Volga peoples - Udmurts, Mari, Chuvashs. Since November 1773, the manifestoes of "Peter III" called on the serfs to crack down on the landowners - "disturbers of the empire and the ruins of the peasants", and the nobles "to take the houses and all their estates as a reward."

On July 12, 1774, the emperor took Kazan with a 20,000-strong army. But the government garrison locked itself in the Kazan Kremlin. The tsarist troops, led by Michelson, arrived to help him. On July 17, 1774, Mikhelson defeated the Pugachevites. "Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich" fled to the right bank of the Volga, and there the peasant war unfolded again on a large scale. The Pugachev Manifesto on July 31, 1774 gave the serfs freedom and "liberated" the peasants from all duties. Insurgent detachments arose everywhere, which acted at their own peril and risk, often out of touch with each other. Interestingly, the rebels usually smashed the estates not of their owners, but of neighboring landowners. Pugachev with the main forces moved to the Lower Volga. He easily took small towns. Detachments of barge haulers, Volga, Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks stuck to him. The powerful fortress of Tsaritsyn stood in the way of the rebels. Under the walls of Tsaritsyn in August 1774, the Pugachevites suffered a major defeat. The thinned detachments of the rebels began to retreat back to where they came from - to the South Urals. Pugachev himself, with a group of Yaik Cossacks, swam across to the left bank of the Volga.

On September 12, 1774, former comrades-in-arms betrayed their leader. "Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich" turned into a runaway rebel Pugach. The angry shouts of Emelyan Ivanovich no longer worked: “Who are you knitting? After all, if I don’t do anything to you, then my son, Pavel Petrovich, will not leave a single person of you alive! The bound "king" was on horseback and taken to the Yaitsky town and handed over to an officer there.

Commander-in-Chief Bibikov was no longer alive. He died in the midst of the suppression of the riot. The new commander-in-chief Pyotr Panin (younger brother of the tutor Tsarevich Pavel) had a headquarters in Simbirsk. Mikhelson ordered Pugachev to be sent there. He was escorted by the illustrious commander of Catherine, recalled from the Turkish war. Pugachev was taken in a wooden cage on a two-wheeled cart.

Meanwhile, Pugachev's comrades-in-arms, who had not yet laid down their arms, spread a rumor that the arrested Pugachev had nothing to do with "Tsar Peter III". Some peasants sighed with relief: “Thank God! Some Pugach was caught, and Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich is free! But in general, the forces of the rebels were undermined. In 1775, the last centers of resistance in the forested Bashkiria and the Volga region were extinguished, and the echoes of the Pugachev rebellion in Ukraine were suppressed.

A.S. PUSHKIN. "HISTORY OF PUGACHEV"

“Suvorov did not leave him. In the village of Mostakh (one hundred and forty miles from Samara) there was a fire near the hut where Pugachev spent the night. They let him out of the cage, tied him to the cart along with his son, a frisky and courageous boy, and all night; Suvorov himself guarded them. In Kosporye, against Samara, at night, in wave weather, Suvorov crossed the Volga and arrived in Simbirsk in early October ... Pugachev was brought directly to the courtyard to Count Panin, who met him on the porch ... "Who are you?" he asked the impostor. “Emelyan Ivanov Pugachev,” he replied. “How dare you, yur, call yourself a sovereign?” Panin continued. - “I'm not a raven,” Pugachev objected, playing with words and speaking, as usual, allegorically. "I am a crow, and a crow is still flying." Panin, noticing that Pugachev's insolence struck the people crowding around the palace, hit the impostor in the face until he bled and tore out a tuft of his beard ... "

MASSACRES AND EXECUTIONS

The victory of the government troops was accompanied by atrocities no less than Pugachev did against the nobles. The enlightened empress concluded that "in the present case, the execution is necessary for the good of the empire." Prone to constitutional dreams, Pyotr Panin realized the call of the autocrat. Thousands of people were executed without trial or investigation. On all the roads of the rebellious region, corpses were scattered, put up for edification. It was impossible to count the peasants punished with whips, batogs, whips. Many had their noses or ears cut off.

Emelyan Pugachev laid his head on the chopping block on January 10, 1775, in front of a large gathering of people on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. Before his death, Emelyan Ivanovich bowed to the cathedrals and said goodbye to the people, repeating in a broken voice: “Forgive me, Orthodox people; let me go, in which I was rude before you. Together with Pugachev, several of his associates were hanged. The famous ataman Chika was taken to Ufa for execution. Salavat Yulaev ended up in hard labor. Pugachevism is over...

Pugachev did not bring relief to the peasants. The government's course towards the peasants hardened, and the scope of serfdom expanded. By decree of May 3, 1783, the peasants of the Left-bank and Sloboda Ukraine passed into serfdom. Peasants here were deprived of the right to transfer from one owner to another. In 1785, the Cossack foreman received the rights of the Russian nobility. Even earlier, in 1775, the free Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed. The Cossacks were resettled in the Kuban, where they formed the Cossack Kuban army. The landlords of the Volga region and other regions did not reduce dues, corvee and other peasant duties. All this was exacted with the same severity.

“Mother Catherine” wanted the memory of Pugachev to be erased. She even ordered to rename the river where the rebellion began: and Yaik became the Urals. The Yaitsky Cossacks and the Yaitsky town were ordered to be called Ural. The village of Zimoveyskaya, the birthplace of Stenka Razin and Emelyan Pugachev, was christened in a new way - Potemkinskaya. However, Pugach was remembered by the people. The old people seriously told that Emelyan Ivanovich was a revived Razin, and he would return more than once to the Don; songs sounded throughout Rus' and legends about the formidable "emperor and his children" circulated.

Meanwhile, uprisings were rising in the country. After the government, in dire need of funds to continue the difficult war in Ukraine, issued copper money (and taxes were collected in silver), the position of the masses became very difficult. Many counterfeit money. For one silver ruble they took twelve copper ones. Some prominent guests and close associates of the king were involved in abuses with copper money; among them - the father-in-law of the tsar I. D. Miloslavsky. Service people refused to take copper money. Streltsy and soldiers fled from the regiments. An attempt by the government to obtain a silver loan abroad was unsuccessful. In 1662, in the conditions of several years of crop failure, a new collection of the “fifth money” was announced, and the archery tax was ordered to be paid in bread. All this led to acute discontent among the townspeople and a new major uprising in Moscow, known as the "copper riot".

Moscow uprising of 1662

On the morning of July 25, 1662, on the Lubyanka and in other places of the city, sheets were found glued by someone with an inscription that the boyar I. D. Miloslavsky, the roundabouts F. M. Rtishchev and I. M. guest Vasily Shorin - traitors.
A large group of townspeople went to the king in Kolomenskoye. There they handed over the “sheet” to the tsar and demanded that the persons named in the paper be extradited for reprisal. Meanwhile, in Moscow, attacks began on the yards of wealthy merchants, hated by the mass of townspeople. The uprising was led by the archer K. Nagaev, the townspeople A. Shcherbok, L. Zhidkiy and others. The rebels, as in 1648, broke into Shorin's house and ruined it, and Shorin's son was captured as a hostage. Soon, however, the uprising was crushed by the tsarist troops. At least two and a half thousand people died under torture and were executed. The Moscow uprising of 1662 again revealed differentiation within the urban population. According to G. Kotoshikhin, “trading people were in that confusion, and their children, and bakers, and butchers, and pie-makers, and village, and walking, and boyar people ... But guests and trading people did not stick to those thieves one person, they also helped against those thieves, and they received praise from the king.

Strengthening the flight of peasants and townspeople

The Moscow uprising forced the government to abandon the further issue of copper money, which was stopped in 1663.
Following the suppression of the uprising, the government again increased pressure on the townspeople. In the autumn of 1662, the "streltsy bread" was doubled, which had a particularly hard effect on the position of the townspeople, who were not engaged or little engaged in agriculture. The townspeople were ruined, people fled from the towns. The peasants also fled, and in many cases they sacked the estates.
By a decree of 1661, for the reception of a runaway peasant, in addition to the fine of 10 rubles established by the Cathedral Code, it was prescribed to take one "surplus peasant" (later their number was increased to four). For four years, in 1663 - 1667, about 8 thousand fugitive peasants and serfs were returned from the Ryazan district alone.
The main stream of fugitives was heading for the Don. Having no means of subsistence, many of the newcomers found themselves forced to go into bondage to the prosperous "household" Cossacks. After Azov remained behind Turkey, the Cossacks lost the opportunity to raid the coast of the Azov and Black Seas. The activity of the Cossacks now began to be directed to the Volga and the Caspian Sea, which contradicted the foreign policy plans of the Moscow government, which was interested in maintaining peaceful relations with Persia. The Cossack foreman, who was guided by Moscow, counteracted the desire of the Cossacks to march on the Volga and the Caspian. All this further aggravated the situation on the Don.

The beginning of the peasant war under the leadership of S.T. Razin

In the summer of 1666, the Cossack ataman Vasily Us undertook a campaign in the central regions of the Russian state, approaching Tula. The movement of the Usa detachment, which numbered about 500 people, caused strong excitement among the local peasantry. The detachment of the rebels grew to 3 thousand people. Before reaching Tula a few versts, Us turned back. Many peasants and serfs who fled from their masters left with him. Usa's campaign was a harbinger of a mass popular uprising that was brewing in those years. At the end of the 60s, the governors repeatedly reported to Moscow about the appearance in different places of detachments of "thieves' people", as they called in official documents all those who were recalcitrant to the government.
Under these conditions, the appearance of a bold and energetic leader of the movement acquired the significance of a long-awaited signal for a mass action. The Cossack Stepan Timofeevich Razin became such a leader. Having collected several hundred "bads", Razin in the spring of 1667 led them to the Volga for "zipuns" (prey). The Razin Cossacks attacked the merchant and royal caravans of ships, seized and divided wealth, exterminated the "primary people". Archers and working people who accompanied the caravans, as a rule, were released. In early June, on thirty-five plows, more than one and a half thousand people gathered under the command of Razin sailed into the Caspian Sea and went by sea to the mouth of the river. Yaik, to the Yaitsky town, and in March 1668 the Cossacks headed for the shores of Persia.
The Persian government put up large military forces against Razin, but Razin, apparently for tactical purposes, announced that he wanted to become a Shah. Soon, however, clashes began between the Cossacks and the inhabitants of the city of Rasht, where the Cossacks were waiting for negotiations with the Shah. The Persian government refused to accept Razin's Cossacks as Shah's subjects and sent a strong fleet against them. In June 1669, the Cossacks defeated the Persian fleet and turned to the Volga with rich booty. Actions of Razin on the Volga and the Caspian Sea in 1667 - 1669 were a spontaneous act of the Cossacks, who were looking for means to improve their share and saw these means in extracting wealth by force and dividing it among themselves.
In early August 1669, Razin went to the mouth of the Volga, captured the metropolitan fisheries and Persian ships that were going with gifts to the king, and on August 25 appeared at Astrakhan.

The rise of the popular movement

Soon the Cossacks left Astrakhan and on October 1 they were already in Tsaritsyn, where they released all those who were in the voivodship prison and tried to kill the voivode. From here they went to the Don. Crowds of Cossacks and runaway peasants flocked to him in the Kagalnitsky town. The Cossacks said that they were going AGAINST the boyars and the initial people, but not against the tsar - the tsarist illusions among them were very strong. Razin himself spread rumors that “Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich” and “Patriarch Nikon”, who was then in disgrace, were allegedly with him.
In mid-April 1670, Stepan Razin approached Tsaritsyn with 7,000 men and soon took possession of it with the active support of local residents. In the captured Tsaritsyn, Razin introduced a Cossack device. On June 19, he approached the heavily fortified Astrakhan, and on the night of June 22, he began an assault on it. The people of Astrakhan, who remembered Razin well, supported his actions. The initial people, governors, nobles were killed; documents of the Astrakhan voivodship department were burned. The management of Astrakhan was organized according to the Cossack model. Vasily Us, Fyodor Sheludyak and other atamans stood at the head of the department.
From Astrakhan through Tsaritsyn, 8 thousand Cossacks moved up the Volga. Saratov and Samara surrendered without a fight. Razin’s “charming letters” (sometimes on behalf of “Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich” or “Patriarch Nikon”) dispersed throughout the Volga region with a call to exterminate boyars, governors, clerks, “worldly bloodsuckers”. Serfs and serfs, townspeople, schismatics - everyone who suffered from the requisitions and oppressions that were becoming unbearable, saw their leader in Razin. Successes in the fight against government troops gave hope for a quick outcome of the struggle. It seemed that it was enough to beat the boyars and nobles, ruin and destroy the master's estates, divide their property among themselves - and everything would go on well, under the rule of the "good" tsar, a new, free life would begin.
The people rose up to fight for freedom with the greatest energy and determination. In this struggle, the traditions of the class struggle were formed and strengthened, the traditions of the heroic joint struggle of the Russian and non-Russian peoples against the oppressors of the tsar and the nobility.
The uprising more and more assumed the character of a peasant war. Now, in 1670, in the Volga region, the bulk of the rebels were peasants. And among the Cossacks of Razin there were many peasants who fled from their masters to the Don.
September 4 Razin approached Simbirsk and began its siege. Government troops took refuge behind the walls of the fortress, but most of the city was in the hands of Razin. At this time, the uprising swept the new regions of the Volga region. Atamans Razin dispersed from under Simbirsk and raised the people to fight. Osipov took Alatyr, went further down the river. Sure, then occupied Kurmysh and Kozmodemyansk. In this area, detachments of Chuvash, Mari and Tatars joined the rebels. The uprisings took place in the commercial and industrial villages near Nizhny Novgorod - Lyskovo, Murashkin, Vorsma, Pavlov, etc. Having united with Osipov's detachment, the rebellious peasants besieged the Makaryev-Zheltovodsky monastery and took it. Ataman Mikhail Kharitonov occupied Saransk, moved to Penza, took it without a fight, captured the Lower and Upper Lomov. In the Kadom district, the rebels were led by the peasant Chirok, in the Shatsk district, by the peasant Shilov, and in Tambov, by the Cossack Meshcheryakov. The former peasant woman - the monastery old woman Alena - at the head of a detachment of rebels took possession of Temnikovo. On the left bank of the Volga, uprisings of the peasants of the Galich district took place, unrest also swept the Udmurt peasants.

Defeat of the uprising

The position of Razin's main forces near Simbirsk was difficult. The three-time assault on the Simbirsk fortress did not lead to success. Near Simbirsk, Razin suffered a serious defeat. For several more months, uprisings continued in the Volga region. In the autumn of the same year, an uprising broke out in Sloboda Ukraine, where Stepan Razin's brother, Frol, went.
The punitive actions of the tsarist troops everywhere ran into exceptionally stubborn resistance. In the second half of November, the uprising began again in the Arzamas district. The rebels stubbornly defended themselves in Temnikovo, big battles took place near Tambov. Only at the end of November was the suppression of the uprising in the Nizhny Novgorod region completed. Penza was taken by government troops only by the end of December 1670. Until the spring of 1671, the rebels defended themselves in the Yadrinsky and Tsivilsky districts. Until November 1671, the rebels held Astrakhan in their hands.
But the forces were unequal. The government dealt with the rebels with monstrous cruelty. Strugs with gallows slowly sailed down the Volga to intimidate the population. At least 11,000 people were executed in Arzamas.
Soon, the fate of Razin himself was tragically decided - in April, he, along with his brother, was captured by homely Cossacks and handed over to the government. On June 2, he was brought to Moscow. Two days after the interrogation, accompanied by torture, Razin was executed (quartered) in Moscow. Even captured and chained, even executed, Razin was terrible to the Moscow government. Triple ranks of archers and soldiers separated Razin from the assembled people. Only a small number of boyars and foreigners were admitted to the place of execution.
However, the resistance of the masses continued in different parts of the country and in various forms. Many people went to distant schismatic sketes. It is in those
years, terrible self-immolations began, when the schismatics preferred martyrdom to surrender to the tsarist detachments. In some places, the schismatic movement took on the character of a mass uprising, as happened in the Solovetsky Monastery.

Uprising in the Solovetsky Monastery

The monastery at the end of the 50s refused to recognize Nikon's reform. Attempts by church authorities to persuade the Solovetsky monks were unsuccessful. Archers sent from Moscow were met with cannon fire from the monastery walls. Thus began in 1668 the uprising in the Solovetsky Monastery. Large food supplies made it possible to withstand a long siege. The monastic peasants began to act more and more actively against the tsarist troops. The social composition of the rebels changed in the direction of strengthening the peasant elements. After the defeat of the Razin uprising, many of its participants came to the monastery. The leading role in the movement passed from the elders to the peasants. This was reflected in the attitude of the monks towards the uprising. As a result of their betrayal in January 1676, the monastery was taken by the tsarist troops. After the suppression of the Solovetsky uprising, the government intensified repressions against the leaders of the split. Archpriest Avvakum was sentenced to death.
With great difficulty, the tsarist government managed to drown the popular movements of the third quarter of the 17th century in blood.

B.A. Rybakov - "History of the USSR from ancient times to late XVIII century." - M., "Higher School", 1975.