“God forbid we see a Russian rebellion - senseless and merciless. Those who are plotting impossible revolutions among us are either young and do not know our people, or they are hard-hearted people, for whom someone else’s head is half a piece, and their own neck is a penny,” wrote A. S. Pushkin. Over its thousand-year history, Russia has seen dozens of riots. We present the main ones.
Salt riot. 1648
Causes
The policy of the government of boyar Boris Morozov, brother-in-law of Tsar Alexei Romanov, included the introduction of taxes on the most necessary goods, including salt - without it it was then impossible to store food; corruption and arbitrariness of officials.
Form
An unsuccessful attempt to send a delegation to the Tsar on June 11, 1648, which was dispersed by the Streltsy. The next day, the unrest grew into a riot, and “great turmoil erupted” in Moscow. A significant part of the archers went over to the side of the townspeople.
Suppression
By giving the archers double pay, the government split the ranks of its opponents and was able to carry out widespread repressions against the leaders and most active participants in the uprising, many of whom were executed on July 3.
Result
The rebels set fire to the White City and Kitay-Gorod, and destroyed the courts of the most hated boyars, okolnichy, clerks and merchants. The crowd dealt with the head of the Zemsky Prikaz, Leonty Pleshcheev, the Duma clerk Nazariy Chisty, who came up with the salt tax. Morozov was removed from power and sent into exile to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (later returned), the okolnichy Pyotr Trakhaniotov was executed. The unrest continued until February 1649. The Tsar made concessions to the rebels: the collection of arrears was canceled and the Zemsky Sobor was convened to adopt a new Council Code.
Copper riot. 1662
Causes
Depreciation of copper coins compared to silver coins; the rise of counterfeiting, general hatred of some members of the elite (much of the same ones who were accused of abuses during the salt riot).
Form
The crowd destroyed the house of the merchant (“guest”) Shorin, who was collecting the “fifth of the money” throughout the state. Several thousand people went to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye, surrounded the Tsar, held him by the buttons, and when he gave his word to investigate the matter, one of the crowd struck hands with the Tsar of All Rus'. The next crowd was aggressive and demanded to hand over the “traitors for execution.”
Suppression
The archers and soldiers, on the orders of the king, attacked the crowd that threatened him, drove it into the river and partially killed it, partially captured it.
Result
Hundreds of people died, 150 of those captured were hanged, some were drowned in the river, the rest were whipped, tortured, “on investigation for guilt, they cut off their arms and legs and fingers,” they were branded and sent to the outskirts of the Moscow state for eternal settlement . In 1663, according to the tsar's decree of the copper industry, the yards in Novgorod and Pskov were closed, and the minting of silver coins was resumed in Moscow.
Streltsy riot. 1698
Causes
The hardships of serving in border cities, grueling campaigns and oppression by colonels - as a result, the desertion of the archers and their joint rebellion with the townspeople of Moscow.
Form
The Streltsy removed their commanders, elected 4 elected officials in each regiment and headed towards Moscow.
Suppression
Result
On June 22 and 28, by order of Shein, 56 “fugitives” of the riot were hanged, and on July 2, another 74 “fugitives” to Moscow were hanged. 140 people were whipped and exiled, 1965 people were sent to cities and monasteries. Peter I, who urgently returned from abroad on August 25, 1698, headed a new investigation (the “great search”). In total, about 2,000 archers were executed, 601 (mostly minors) were whipped, branded and exiled. Peter I personally cut off the heads of five archers. The yard positions of the archers in Moscow were distributed, the buildings were sold. The investigation and executions continued until 1707. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th century, 16 streltsy regiments that did not participate in the uprising were disbanded, and the streltsy with their families were expelled from Moscow to other cities and enrolled in the townspeople.
Plague riot. 1771
Causes
During the plague epidemic of 1771, Moscow Archbishop Ambrose tried to prevent worshipers and pilgrims from gathering at the miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Bogolyubskaya at the Varvarsky Gate of Kitay-Gorod. He ordered the offering box to be sealed and the icon itself to be removed. This caused an explosion of indignation.
Form
At the sound of the alarm bell, a crowd of rebels destroyed the Chudov Monastery in the Kremlin, the next day took the Donskoy Monastery by storm, killed Archbishop Ambrose, who was hiding there, and began to destroy quarantine outposts and houses of the nobility.
Suppression
Suppressed by troops after three days of fighting.
Result
More than 300 participants were put on trial, 4 people were hanged, 173 were whipped and sent to hard labor. The "tongue" of the Spassky Alarm Bell (on the Alarm Tower) was removed by the authorities to prevent further demonstrations. The government was forced to take measures to combat the plague.
Bloody Sunday. 1905
Causes
A lost strike that began on January 3, 1905 at the Putilov plant and spread to all factories in St. Petersburg.
Form
A procession of St. Petersburg workers to the Winter Palace in order to present Tsar Nicholas II with a collective petition about workers’ needs, which included economic and political demands. The initiator was the ambitious priest Georgy Gapon.
Suppression
The brutal dispersal of work columns by soldiers and Cossacks, during which firearms were used against the demonstrators.
Result
According to official figures, 130 people were killed and 299 were injured (including several police officers and soldiers). However, much larger numbers were mentioned (up to several thousand people). The Emperor and Empress allocated 50 thousand rubles from their own funds to provide assistance to family members of those “killed and wounded during the riots on January 9th in St. Petersburg.” However, after Bloody Sunday, strikes intensified, both the liberal opposition and revolutionary organizations became more active - and the First Russian Revolution began.
Kronstadt rebellion. 1921
Causes
In response to strikes and rallies of workers with political and economic demands in February 1921, the Petrograd Committee of the RCP (b) introduced martial law in the city, arresting labor activists.
Form
On March 1, 1921, a 15,000-strong rally took place on Anchor Square in Kronstadt under the slogans “Power to the Soviets, not parties!” Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Kalinin arrived at the meeting; he tried to calm those gathered, but the sailors disrupted his speech. After this, he left the fortress unhindered, but then the commissar of the fleet Kuzmin and the chairman of the Kronstadt Council Vasiliev were captured and thrown into prison, and an open rebellion began. On March 1, 1921, the “Provisional Revolutionary Committee” (PRK) was created in the fortress.
Suppression
The rebels found themselves “outside the law,” no negotiations were held with them, and repressions followed against the relatives of the leaders of the uprising. On March 2, Petrograd and the Petrograd province were declared under a state of siege. After artillery shelling and fierce fighting, Kronstadt was taken by storm.
Result
According to Soviet sources, the attackers lost 527 people killed and 3,285 wounded (real losses could be much higher). During the assault, 1 thousand rebels were killed, over 2 thousand were “wounded and captured with weapons in their hands,” more than 2 thousand surrendered and about 8 thousand went to Finland. 2,103 people were sentenced to capital punishment, and 6,459 people were sentenced to various terms of punishment. In the spring of 1922, the mass eviction of Kronstadt residents from the island began.
Novocherkassk execution. 1962
Causes
Supply interruptions due to strategic shortcomings of the USSR government, rising food prices and declining wages, incompetent behavior of management (plant director Kurochkin told the strikers: “There is not enough money for meat - eat liver pies”).
Form
Strike of workers of the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Plant and other townspeople on June 1-2, 1962 in Novocherkassk (Rostov region). It turned into mass riots.
Suppression
Troops are involved, including a tank unit. Fire was opened on the crowd.
Result
A total of 45 people went to city hospitals with gunshot wounds, although there were many more victims. 24 people died, two more people were killed on the evening of June 2 under unclear circumstances (according to official data). The authorities made some concessions, but there were mass arrests and trials. 7 “ringleaders” were shot, the remaining 105 received prison sentences of 10 to 15 years in a maximum security colony.
Textbooks are silent about this war, although it was a real war, with gun salvoes, dead and captured, with victors and vanquished, with a trial of the defeated and celebrations for those who won and received indemnities (compensation for losses associated with the war). The battles of that unknown war unfolded on the territory of 12 provinces of the Russian Empire (from Kovno in the west to Saratov in the east) in 1858-1860.
Historians often call this war “teetotaler riots,” because the peasants refused to buy wine and vodka and swore not to drink for the entire village. Why did they do this? Because they didn’t want tax farmers to profit at the expense of their health - those 146 people into whose pockets money from the sale of alcohol from all over Russia flowed. The tax farmers literally forced vodka on them; if someone didn’t want to drink, he still had to pay for it: these were the rules then...
In those years, there was a practice in our country: each man was assigned to a certain tavern, and if he did not drink his “norm” and the amount from the sale of alcohol turned out to be insufficient, then the taverns collected the lost money from the yards of the area subject to the tavern.
Wine merchants, having gained a taste, inflated prices: by 1858, a bucket of fusel wine began to be sold for ten rubles instead of three. In the end, the peasants got tired of feeding the parasites, and without agreement they began to boycott the wine merchants.
The peasants turned away from the tavern not so much because of greed, but because of the principle: hardworking, hard-working owners saw how their fellow villagers, one after another, joined the ranks of bitter drunkards, who no longer liked anything but booze. Wives and children suffered, and in order to stop the spread of drunkenness among the villagers, at community meetings the whole world decided: NO ONE DRINKS IN OUR VILLAGE!
What could the wine merchants do? They lowered the price. The working people did not respond to the “kindness”. Shinkari, in order to discourage teetotaling sentiments, announced a free distribution of vodka. And people didn’t fall for it, answering firmly: “DON’T DRINK!”
For example, in the Balashov district of the Saratov province in December 1858, 4,752 people gave up drinking alcohol. A guard from the people was assigned to all taverns in Balashov to monitor so that no one bought wine. Those who violated the vow were fined or subjected to corporal punishment by the verdict of the people's court.
The townspeople also joined the grain growers: workers, officials, nobles. Sobriety was also supported by the priests, who blessed parishioners to give up drunkenness. This seriously frightened winemakers and potion traders, and they complained to the government.
In March 1858, the ministers of finance, internal affairs and state property issued orders for their departments. The essence of those decrees was to prohibit sobriety. Local authorities were ordered not to allow the organization of temperance societies, and existing sentences on abstinence from wine were to be destroyed and not allowed in the future.
It was then, in response to the ban on sobriety, that a wave of pogroms swept across Russia. Having begun in May 1859 in the west of the country, in June the riot reached the banks of the Volga. Peasants destroyed drinking establishments in Balashovsky, Atkarsky, Khvalynsky, Saratovsky and many other districts.
In Volsk on July 24, 1859, a crowd of three thousand destroyed wine exhibitions at the fair. Quarter supervisors, police, mobilizing disabled teams and soldiers of the 17th artillery brigade, tried in vain to calm the rioters. The rebels disarmed the police and soldiers and released prisoners from prison. Only a few days later, troops arriving from Saratov restored order, arresting 27 people (and in total 132 people were thrown into prison in the Volsky and Khvalynsky districts).
The investigative commission convicted all of them based solely on the testimony of the tavern inmates, who accused the defendants of stealing wine (while smashing the taverns, the rioters did not drink the wine, but poured it on the ground), without supporting their accusations with evidence. Historians note that not a single case of theft was recorded; the money was stolen by the employees of the drinking establishments themselves, attributing the loss to the rebels.
From July 24 to July 26, 37 drinking houses were destroyed in the Volsky district, and for each of them the peasants were charged large fines to restore the taverns. In the documents of the investigative commission, the names of convicted temperance fighters were preserved: L. Maslov and S. Khlamov (peasants of the village of Sosnovka), M. Kostyunin (village of Tersa), P. Vertegov, A. Volodin, M. Volodin, V. Sukhov (with Donguz). The soldiers who took part in the temperance movement were ordered by the court to be “deprived of all the rights of the state, and the lower ranks - of medals and stripes for blameless service, whoever has them, to be punished with spitzrutens every 100 people, 5 times each, and to be sent to hard labor in factories on 4 years".
In total, 11 thousand people were sent to prison and hard labor throughout Russia. Many died from bullets: the riot was pacified by troops who received orders to shoot at the rebels. Throughout the country there was a reprisal against those who dared to protest against the drinking of the people.
It was necessary to consolidate the success. How? The government, like the heroes of a popular comedy film, decided: “Whoever bothers us will help us.” The tax system for selling wine was abolished and an excise tax was introduced instead. Now anyone who wanted to produce and sell wine could, by paying a tax to the treasury, profit from getting their fellow citizens drunk.
This is a chapter from the book of Saratov local historian, member of the Union of Writers of Russia Vladimir Ilyich Vardugin.
One of the most striking manifestations of the class struggle was the uprising of peasants: landowners and monasteries, palace and state. This form of class struggle in the countryside seems to immediately precede and support the peasant war. The highest form of class struggle of the peasantry, the peasant war itself, is to a large extent the result of the growth and merging of individual centers of peasant uprisings into a single all-Russian conflagration.
Let us dwell first of all on the performance of the palace and state peasants. Their position, especially the state ones, was somewhat better than that of the monastery peasants and, especially, the landowners. But nevertheless, the state peasants were under the yoke of the feudal state, and the palace peasants were dependent on the king, who in this case acted not only as the sovereign, but also as the master - the feudal lord.
Defending their interests from the arbitrariness of local authorities and royal administrators, from neighboring landowners, state and palace peasants in the 40s and 50s of the 18th century. they widely resorted to submitting petitions to various institutions and even to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna herself. But since the filing of petitions was considered by the authorities as disobedience, it is quite natural that the peasant electors - walkers, petitioners “are tyrannically beaten with whips and batogs and tortured in heavy chains under a strong guard, together with the villains. And because of that ruin and torment, no one dares to bash about it.”
Submitting petitions was difficult. Funds were needed to support the petitioners, to conduct business, etc. Energy, perseverance, and perseverance were needed in order to try to find justice for the servants who committed arbitrariness. Nevertheless, the state peasants stubbornly continued to fight. They especially fiercely resisted their transfer to the ranks of landowners and monastic peasants, since this inevitably entailed a significant deterioration in their position, an increase in all sorts of duties, increased exploitation in all forms and their final transformation into “baptized property.” The state and palace peasants had to wage a stubborn struggle with their neighboring landowners who sought to seize their lands and holdings.
The peculiarity of this form of resistance of the state and palace peasants was that they had to oppose their own brothers - the landowner peasants, who seized the lands and lands of the state peasants not only with the knowledge and permission of their bar, but most often on their initiative. So, for example, in 1753, the serfs of Count Sheremetev from the village of Rogovoy and the village of Lesunov, incited by their master, attacked their neighbors - the palace peasants and seized their property and lands.
It should be noted that the palace peasants extremely rarely turned to their managers for help, naturally believing that they would rather find a common language with the landowner than with them. But the state and palace peasants did not leave unanswered the attempts of the landowners to seize their land and lands. With the whole world, spontaneously, armed with axes and drekoly, they defended their lands and farms, often going on the offensive themselves and seizing the land of the landowners. The clerk of the Naryshkin princes complained about peasants from different villages of Kozlovsky and Tambov districts who were cutting down the landowner’s forest, mowing the grass, harvesting grain, taking away hay, and in general “wasting every land of his master.” Peasants often spoke out against their managers.
In 1732, a powerful movement of palace peasants developed in the Tambov region. They submitted a petition to the managers, complaining of bribery. The petitioners were captured. In response, 3 thousand peasants dispersed the military command, freed the petitioners and stubbornly resisted the sent troops.
For almost eight years, from 1733 to 1741, the movement of the palace peasants of the Khatun volost, “carrying out a rebellion,” continued. In 1743, having gathered in large numbers, the palace peasants of the Smolensk province dealt with the ruler. The palace peasants of the Klushinsky volost of the Mozhaisk district did not obey the authorities and refused to fulfill their duties in 1751.
In the late 40s and early 50s, secular gatherings of palace peasants, who gathered without the knowledge of the stewards, became significantly more frequent. The peasants expelled rulers they did not like, refused to send horses and carts, transport grain, or perform various jobs.
The increased resistance of the palace peasants prompted the government in 1758 to issue a decree according to which the managers of the palace estates could recruit “all sorts of revelers and opponents,” but it was difficult to eradicate “all sorts of revelers and opponents.” True, since the degree of exploitation, the form of dependence of the state and even palace peasants was different from that of the landowners and monasteries, they lived and breathed easier, and there were no those fetters in economic activity that characterize the position of the landowners and monastery peasants, to that extent the class struggle of state and of the palace peasants, despite the fact that it resulted in open disobedience, and even uprisings, it was still not as aggravated and did not take on such a scale as it did on the lands of landowners and monasteries.
The movement of state peasants was directly related to the unrest of the peasants. The Odnodvortsy, descendants of the “old services of service people” in the 18th century, found themselves in an extremely difficult situation. Once upon a time they really differed from the peasants, because they carried out military service on the outskirts of the Russian state in the immediate vicinity of the “Wild Field”. In the 18th century they found themselves in the distant rear, and their significance as the border guards of the Russian state went into the realm of legend. They were still not considered serfs and, moreover, they could have serfs themselves and carried out military service in the land militia, but the extension of the capitation tax, additional fees and countless duties in favor of the state to them actually turned them into state peasants exploited by the feudal state. To this should be added the chronic and continuously growing shortage of land, characteristic of the overwhelming majority of single-yard owners who did not know the communal redistribution of land, and the decisive and energetic attack of landowners on single-yard lands. Among the odnodvortsy, especially Kursk and Voronezh, only a few had serfs and rented out land. Much more numerous were the groups of single-household dwellers who did not have “arable land and no shelters.” These odnodvortsy were forced to go for rent to neighboring landowners or their own fellow villagers - odnodvortsy, and their families lived “in the name of Christ” and wandered “between the yards.”
The most dangerous enemy of the odnodvortsy was the landowner. Despite the prohibition, landowners bought land from impoverished members of the same estate, and most often the nobles simply seized their lands and lands by force. Attempts to appeal to justice remained unsuccessful, forcing the members of the same palace to become bitterly convinced every time of the truth of the Russian proverb: “Don’t fight the strong, don’t sue the rich.” Therefore, many odnodvortsy, “unable to tolerate the attacks on them from the bosses and landowners who were in charge,” fled for their lives. But it was not always the case that the odnolords resolved their disputes with rich landowners and all-powerful authorities by fleeing. Many took up arms. For four years (from 1761 to 1764), the odnodvortsy village of Vishnevoye, Kozlovsky district, Voronezh province, attacked the village of Redkina, the titular councilor Andrei Redkin, who settled on lands and lands that actually belonged to the Vishnevoye odnodvortsy.
In 1760, there was a riot among the peasants and Ukrainian peasant settlers in the Pavlovsk district of the Voronezh province. The rebels refused to “be subject to the landowners” and stubbornly resisted the military teams sent against them.
Two years later, an uprising of members of the same palace broke out in Kozlovsky district, led by Trofim Klishin. The Kozlov voivodeship office reported that “from various villages, the same-lords, having gathered in large numbers without permission,” destroyed noble estates and farmsteads, destroyed buildings, trampled grain in the fields and cut down protected groves.
Entering into an acute class conflict with the feudal lords, secular and spiritual, the former state and palace peasants assigned to the plant or given to the landowner, the main demand, as a rule, was to return them to their original position as state, state, black sowing or palace peasants. One might think that such a return to the status quo was in keeping with their social aspirations. But it would be wrong to believe that returning to the state of state peasants who did not know the “master”, “master”, whoever he was, whatever he was called, whether he wore a powdered wig or a monastic skuf on his head, was really the limit of the aspirations of the rebellious peasantry, having reached which the peasants, once again becoming the property of the “Tsar-Father” and obligated to perform duties only in favor of the state, would calm down and stop “mischief”, “nastiness”, “robberies” and “riots”. It was not just about returning to bygone times, which always seemed better than today. The past times were only the least evil.
If the position of the black-growing peasants and categories of the rural population close to them, such as single-lords, had really been so tempting, then there would not have been that fierce struggle both against the feudal state and against the secular and spiritual feudal lords advancing on them, examples of which we have given higher.
The uprisings of landowners and monastic peasants deserve especially close attention from researchers interested in the class struggle of the peasantry.
The class struggle of the landowner peasants, which took the form of open disobedience and rebellion, never ceased in the country. It then intensified, then weakened, then again took on an increasingly threatening character for the landowners and authorities. Over time, and especially in the 60s, the unrest of the peasants took on an increasingly chronic, protracted nature, which forced, in particular, Catherine II, upon ascending the throne, to start counting the number of peasants who were in “rebellion” and “disobedience.”
During the 30–50s of the 18th century, 37 uprisings of landowner peasants took place in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kazan, Novgorod and Arkhangelsk provinces, and in the 60s, only eight years (from 1762 to 1769) broke out 73 uprisings. Approximately half of all peasant uprisings in the 30–50s were due to the difficult economic situation of the peasants and the complete impossibility of fulfilling excessive duties in favor of the landowner and the state. The peasants refused to obey the landowners and clerks, dealt with them, seized the landowners' crops and property, divided the livestock and, as a rule, resisted the military teams sent to pacify them. The other half of the peasant uprisings of the 30s–50s were due to the same reasons, but the participants in these unrest resolutely demanded that they be transferred to the category of either palace peasants or, more often, to the category of state peasants. In most cases, they have been like that in the past.
The uprising, as a rule, broke out during the period when the estate was being transferred from one owner to another. This reflected the peasants’ idea that they were “strong” only for a given landowner, a given landowner family. Often uprisings took place in villages and villages with a sharp stratification of property among the peasantry, with highly developed commodity-money relations. These uprisings were more persistent, protracted, prolonged and were sometimes accompanied by well-organized armed resistance of the peasants.
The same phenomena are characteristic of the uprisings of landowner peasants in the 60s and early 70s, but it should be noted the general trend of the unrest: they became more and more persistent, fierce and long-lasting.
Beginning in 1729, the quitrent peasants of Naryshkin’s estate in Shatsky district were worried. In a petition addressed to Emperor Peter II, the peasants complained about the increase in rent, about the growth of corvee, about bullying and robbery by the clerk Klim, as a result of which most of the peasants “came into great complete poverty.” Attempts by the peasants to appeal to Naryshkin himself with a complaint were unsuccessful, and now, turning to the emperor, the peasants asked to be considered as palace servants from now on, “so as not to die of starvation.” Subjected to brutal execution, the peasants did not stop resisting. The most active part went into the forests, creating a “robber party”, which in the spring of 1735 burned Naryshkin’s house and killed the clerk in the village of Konobeev, destroyed the house of the landowner Chaadaev and the house of the mayor in Elatma, and in the Murom district they destroyed a tavern and merchant shops.
The struggle of the landowner peasants to “depart from the landowners” continued in the 30s, but it especially intensified starting from the 40s. For four years, the peasants of the village of Semenovskaya, Dmitrov district, refused to obey the new owner, landowner Dokhtorov, declaring that “they, de Dokhtorov, will not listen to him in the future.” Armed with clubs, axes, stakes and spears, the peasants expelled the Detective Order teams from the village several times, and only a large military detachment managed to suppress the uprising.
No less stubborn was the struggle of the peasants of Count Bestuzhev’s estate in the Pskov district, who were confiscated in 1743 and assigned to the empress. Considering themselves from that moment on to be state-owned, the peasants refused to pay their debt to the count. An uprising broke out. A crowd of two thousand armed peasants, led by the manager Trofimov, elected by the peasants, stubbornly resisted the military command. A real battle broke out. The peasants lost 55 people in killed alone. The arrested Trofimov left prison twice and managed to submit a petition to Elizaveta Petrovna. Only imprisonment in distant Rogerwick forced him to give up the fight. 112 peasants were whipped as "breeders", and 311 people were punished with whips. It should be noted that the “subsistence peasants” not only did not take part in this uprising, but also provided assistance to the military team.
The peasants of the villages of Ulema and Astrakhan in the Kazan district stubbornly resisted and refused to submit to the landowner Narmonitsky. This movement lasted two years (1754–1755). The peasants did not want to recognize him as their master, since they considered themselves “escheated”, because their landowners, for whom they were registered according to the audit, had died. They considered Narmonitsky simply a usurper. Armed, the peasants divided all the supplies and belongings taken from barns, cellars and the landowner's house, and prepared to defend their villages. They sent ten walkers to Moscow with petitions expressing their request “not to follow the landowner.” With great difficulty the authorities suppressed this unrest.
In the 60s of the XVIII century. the number of unrest among landowner peasants increases significantly. The state and palace peasants, who became landowners and private owners, immediately experienced all the hardships associated with the change of owners, and quickly and decisively responded to these changes.
In 1765, an uprising of peasants in the village of Vasilyevskoye in the Tambov district broke out. Vasilyevskoye was once a palace village, and the peasants repeatedly “beat” the Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II, asking to return them to the jurisdiction of the palace department and get rid of the landowner. Their requests only ended in reprisals. Driven to despair, the peasants of the village of Vasilyevskoye “and their villages” in 1765 “started a rebellion” against the landowner Frolov-Bagreev and “with the help of palace and volost peasants, they plundered his house.” Military operations began in Vasilyevskoye. When the military team nevertheless “overcame” the poorly armed peasants, some of them went into the forest, while the other hid for a long time with their neighbors - the palace peasants.
In 1766, in the Voronezh province, the peasants of the settlements of Petrovskaya, Vorontsovka, Aleksandrovka, Mikhailovka, Fasanovka and Kovalskaya, which belonged to different owners, “refused to obey their owners and began to rebel.” The “disobedient peasants” were Ukrainians (“Cherkasy”), descendants of active participants in the liberation war in Ukraine of 1648–1654 who moved here. The unrest of the “Little Russians” continued for a long time, spreading from Voronezh to Belgorod province. The rebel “Cherkassy” declared that they would not listen and obey the landowners, they would not leave their lands, they considered themselves obligated only to the sovereign and the state, and “to the current owners, and to others to whom they do not want to be subject.”
What did the rebel peasants - the “Little Russians” - strive for and demand? From the reports of the commanders of military units it follows that they “wish to be state, volost, or assigned to the service.” Descendants of Ukrainian Cossacks who settled in Russia in “settlements” where they knew neither “obedience” nor masters, the “Cherkasy” of the Voronezh and Belgorod provinces sought to become again, like their ancestors, sovereign people, subjects of the state. Either a state peasant or a serving military man - this is the demand with which the “Cherkassy” turned to the authorities, considering their serfdom and their duties in relation to their masters to be a great injustice. The “Little Russians” were offered either to give a subscription - to obey their masters, or to go anywhere. But the peasants did not want to give such a subscription, nor to leave their native lands. The Cherkasy movement took on a threatening character for landowners and authorities. Crowds of rebels numbering up to 2-3 thousand people were armed with guns, spears, reeds, and axes. The military teams had difficulty suppressing their performance.
In 1762, the peasants of the villages of Nikolskoye and Arkhangelsk with villages in the Volokolamsk district refused to “obey” the landowner Sheremetev. At the gatherings, having gathered “in large numbers,” “hundreds to five,” armed with clubs, spears, and axes, the peasants decided to disobey the master. They shouted: “We are not Sheremetev, but the sovereign.” The rebels seized bread from the landowner's granaries, divided it, and began to cut down the protected grove. They declared to the armed detachment of servants sent by the master: “Tell your master that when they don’t leave a hair on us, then we will be obedient.”
It is neither possible nor necessary to list all the uprisings of the landowner peasants, but it is worth noting some characteristic features of the peasant uprisings of the 60s.
The peasants not only divide the property of the landowners, but also take away and destroy their “letters,” i.e., documents about their serfdom, as happened, for example, during the uprising of the peasants of the Staritsa estate of the landowner Novosiltsev.
The rebellious peasants seek to enlist the support of their neighbors. In 1762, the peasants of the Poshekhon estate of the landowners Polyakov and Chertovitsyn, “inviting various peasant estates to help them,” threatened to expand the uprising. The desire of the rebel peasants to go beyond the boundaries of patrimonial isolation, to find help and support in a neighboring or even distant village and, in turn, to help him is combined with a lively and active response to the events that took place in other fiefs. The peasants heard and knew that there was unrest everywhere, that “disobedience” and “disobedience” were being caused by their class brothers throughout vast Russia, and, trying to keep up with them, prompted by the example of others who had risen to fight for land and freedom, they themselves began an uprising . So, for example, in June 1762, the peasants and servants of the Staritsa estate of the landowner Zmeev from the village of Balkova with the villages burst into his yard and house shouting that “from now on... they don’t want to be subject to rule.” At the same time, the peasants referred to the fact that they were far from the first to refuse obedience to the landowners. “Many of our brothers have already abandoned their masters altogether, and have gone to St. Petersburg, so as not to continue to be under the landowners, but to live according to their own will, to beat their foreheads.” And so the peasants of Zmeev sought to keep up with others, to catch up and achieve an order in which they could live “at their own free will.”
Some uprisings of landowner peasants were exceptionally strong. The peasants of the estates of Tatishchev and Khlopov in the Tver and Klin districts, numbering up to 1,500 people, led by the retired clerk Ivan Sobakin, captured 64 soldiers in a fierce battle, although they themselves lost three people killed and several people were wounded. An entire cuirassier regiment had to be sent to suppress the uprising.
The speech of the peasants Tatishchev and Khlopov found a response among the peasants of neighboring landowners, in particular the peasants of the Volokolamsk and Tver estates of Prince Meshchersky. They refused to obey the master and sent petitioners to St. Petersburg with a complaint. Particularly active were the “petitioner” Mikhail Pakhomov and the compiler of the petition, a literate yard man, Moisei Rodionov.
In the spring of 1765, an uprising of peasants in the village of Ivanovskoye in the Penza district broke out. The reason for the uprising was the sale of the village by Prince Odoevsky to the collegiate secretary Shevyrev. The rebel peasants had “all kinds of fiery and icy weapons”: guns, scythes, clubs, bows and arrows, flails, stakes, axes, spears and hooks designed for pulling riders from the saddle. A military team of soldiers and Cossacks, which arrived to pacify the rebels and even had two cannons, found itself in a difficult situation. The team commander, Lieutenant Dmitriev, encountered passive resistance from the peasants of all the surrounding villages and hamlets - Karabulak, Golitsyno, Novakovka, Matyushkino, Alekseevka, etc.: the neighbors hid the property and families of the rebels, did not sell the military team “not only food supplies, but also bread,” trying to “starve the regular and irregular team for one village of Ivanovskoye,” they did not provide witnesses. The peasants of these villages, forming “horse parties”, rode around Ivanovsky. Lieutenant Dmitriev was also afraid of the “robber party” operating near the village of Golitsyno. Fearing an open battle, Dmitriev persuaded the peasants to listen to the new master. But they didn’t want to hear about it, they sent a walker to Moscow to the old master Odoevsky, and they themselves were actively preparing for defense: they made, collected and bought weapons, stocked up on gunpowder, fortified the village, “all the streets were blocked and considerable fortresses were established at night.” . The rebel peasants were divided into three groups. The most numerous and well-armed detachment was preparing to take a frontal attack and fight in the village itself. The second detachment hid in the forest and was supposed to attack the military team from the rear, and the third stood at the dam. The uprising was led by elected officials Andrei Ternikov, Pyotr Gromov and others. Pyotr Gromov was helped by a retired soldier Sidor Suslov. The rebels “all agreed to die together and not give up.” Only after receiving reinforcements did the military team launch an attack on Ivanovskoye. On May 7 and 8, a fierce battle broke out. When artillery was used against the rebels, the peasants set the village on fire and went with their families into the forest, where they had driven their cattle and property away before. Only by the fall did the authorities manage to deal with the “disobedient” peasants.
The uprising in the village of Ivanovskoye is distinguished by its tenacity, courage, and certain elements of organization (an attempt to give harmony to the army of the rebellious village, establishing contacts with neighbors, preliminary evacuation of property, strengthening the village, collecting and manufacturing weapons).
The uprising of the peasants of the village of Argamakovo with villages in the Verkhnelomovsky district of the Voronezh province, which occurred in 1768, was different in nature. The peasants refused to obey their master Shepelev. On August 16, two squadrons of hussars entered the village of Argamakovo. About a thousand peasants, armed with spears, clubs, poles, flails and axes, greeted the command “furiously.” They shouted that they were ready “even to die, but they will not go under Shepelev.” When the hussars began to surround the peasants, they themselves rushed to the attack. Ignoring the losses, the peasants rushed towards the soldiers. The hussars opened fire and began to set fire to houses. The peasants retreated into the forest, but the hussars immediately rushed there. The “ringleaders” were captured.
The uprising in Argamakovo is a strong but fleeting outbreak of anger among the landowner peasants.
In general, as a rule, all peasant uprisings on landowners' lands did not last long, and only individual uprisings lasted quite a long time. So, for example, for more than three years (1756–1759) the peasants of the village of Nikolskoye, Livensky district, caused “all sorts of nasty things” and showed stubborn resistance to their master Smirnov. The peasants of the village of Pavlovsky, Moscow district, and the 19 villages that “pulled” towards it were in “disobedience” for four years. The peasants “registered to the sovereign” refused to pay the quitrent. They sent walkers to St. Petersburg, filed petitions, and went in droves to Moscow to ask for “merciful justice.” They were “put on the right”, flogged, imprisoned, put in stocks, military teams were sent to the villages, arrears were severely collected, but the tenacity, courage, perseverance and fortitude of the peasants resulted in the cessation of the collection of arrears and the withdrawal of the military team from the village of Pavlovskoye and the villages.
It is characteristic that not only “average” and “meager” peasants often participate in uprisings, but also “subsistence”, “best”, “first-class”, “capitalist” peasants. This was the case, for example, in 1765–1766. in the village of Znamensky, Simbirsk patrimony of the Sheremetevs, when in the unrest of the peasants, on the one hand, the “subsistence” peasants Anika and Kuzma Zaitsev, Matvey Ilyin, Vakurov, Kolodeznev, who rented land from their fellow villagers, hired farm laborers, traded, etc., took an active part in the unrest. and on the other, former barge hauler F. Bulygin, farm laborer F. Kozel, “meager” peasant Larion Vekhov, who at one time was listed as “on the run,” and others.
During the unrest of the peasants in the villages of Borisoglebsk and Arkhangelsk, Penza estate of the Kurakins in 1771–1772. Among the rebels there were both “subsistence” and “meager” peasants. From this it follows that most often peasants, regardless of “wealth” and “subsistence”, fought against their boyars, against serfdom.
Life was not easy for the peasants during the time described by A.S. Pushkin in the story “Dubrovsky” - the time of serfdom. Very often the landowners treated them cruelly and unfairly.
It was especially hard for the serfs of landowners like Troekurov. Troekurov's wealth and noble family gave him enormous power over people and the opportunity to satisfy any desires. For this spoiled and uneducated man, people were toys who had neither a soul nor a will of their own (and not only serfs). He kept the maids who were supposed to do needlework under lock and key, and forcibly married them off at his discretion. At the same time, the landowner's dogs lived better than people. Kirila Petrovich treated the peasants and servants “strictly and capriciously”; they were afraid of the master, but hoped for his protection in relations with their neighbors.
Troekurov’s neighbor, Andrei Gavrilovich Dubrovsky, had a completely different relationship with the serfs. The peasants loved and respected their master, they sincerely worried about his illness and looked forward to the arrival of Andrei Gavrilovich’s son, young Vladimir Dubrovsky.
It so happened that a quarrel between former friends - Dubrovsky and Troekurov - led to the transfer of the former's property (along with the house and serfs) to Troekurov. Ultimately, Andrei Gavrilovich, having suffered greatly from the insult of his neighbor and the unfair court decision, dies.
The peasants of Dubrovsky are very attached to their owners and are determined not to allow themselves to be handed over to the power of the cruel Troekurov. The serfs are ready to defend their masters and, having learned about the court decision and the death of the old master, they rebel. Dubrovsky stood up in time for the clerks who came to explain the state of affairs after the transfer of property. The peasants had already gathered to tie up the police officer and deputy of the zemstvo court, Shabashkin, shouting: “Guys! away with them!” when the young master stopped them, explaining that by their actions the peasants could harm both themselves and him.
The clerks made a mistake by staying overnight in Dubrovsky’s house, because although the people were quiet, they did not forgive the injustice. When the young master was walking around the house at night, he met Arkhip with an ax, who at first explained that he “came... to see if everyone was at home,” but after that he honestly admitted his deepest desire: “if only everyone would be at once, that would be the end.” water.” Dubrovsky understands that the matter has gone too far, he himself is put in a hopeless situation, deprived of his estate and lost his father due to the tyranny of his neighbor, but he is also sure that “the clerks are not to blame.”
Dubrovsky decided to burn his house so that strangers would not get it, and ordered his nanny and the other people remaining in the house, except the clerks, to be taken out into the courtyard.
When the servants, on the master's orders, set the house on fire. Vladimir became worried about the clerks: it seemed to him that he had locked the door to their room, and they would not be able to get out of the fire. He asks Arkhip to go check if the door is open, with instructions to unlock it if it is closed. However, Arkhip has his own opinion on this matter. He blames the people who brought the evil news for what is happening, and firmly locks the door. Orderly ones are doomed to death. This act may characterize the blacksmith Arkhip as a cruel and ruthless person, but it is he who climbs onto the roof after a while, not afraid of fire, in order to save the cat, distraught with fear. It is he who reproaches the boys who are enjoying unexpected fun: “You are not afraid of God: God’s creation is dying, and you are foolishly rejoicing.”
The blacksmith Arkhip is a strong man, but he lacks the education to understand the depth and seriousness of the current situation.
Not all serfs had the determination and courage to complete the work they started. Only a few people disappeared from Kistenevka after the fire: the blacksmith Arkhip, the nanny Egorovna, the blacksmith Anton and the yard man Grigory. And, of course, Vladimir Dubrovsky, who wanted to restore justice and saw no other way out for himself.
In the surrounding area, instilling fear in the landowners, robbers appeared who robbed the landowners' houses and burned them. Dubrovsky became the leader of the robbers; he was “famous for his intelligence, courage and some kind of generosity.” The guilty peasants and serfs, tortured by the cruelty of their masters, fled into the forest and also joined the detachment of “people's avengers.”
Thus, Troekurov’s quarrel with old Dubrovsky served only as a match that managed to ignite the flame of popular discontent with the injustice and tyranny of the landowners, forcing the peasants to enter into an irreconcilable struggle with their oppressors
Russia was in a terrible situation.
The Tsar was in captivity, the Patriarch was in captivity, the Swedes occupied Novgorod the Great, the Poles settled in the Moscow Kremlin, the upper class sold themselves to foreigners. Everywhere there were gangs of robbers who plundered cities, tortured peasants, and desecrated churches.
Famine was raging: in some areas they ate human flesh. This country, accustomed to autocracy, no longer had a government. Who saved Russia? The people, in the broadest sense of the word, including the noble nobility and patriotic clergy. Already rumors of miracles showed what enthusiasm had taken over the minds.
1.
Social movements of the “time of troubles”
There were visions in Nizhny Novgorod, in Vladimir. The authorities of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Archimandrite Dionysius and cellarer Palitsyn, sent one letter after another to Russian cities.
The Cossacks were agitating distant Kama Rus'. When the Trinity Charters came to Nizhny, and when the archpriest read them to the assembled people, then one of the Nizhny Novgorod citizens, the meat merchant Kuzma Minin, began to say: “If we want to help the Moscow state, then there is no need for us to spare the estate, we will not regret anything: we will sell our houses , we will pawn our wives and children and beat them with our brows - who would stand up for the Orthodox faith and be our boss.”
Minin hit him with his forehead, asking him to be the leader of the army. Preparations began immediately. Before starting we fasted. Russia felt like a sinner: it gave and broke many oaths - to Godunov, his son Feodor, Otrepiev, Shuisky, Vladislav. A three-day fast was prescribed, from which even infants were not excluded. With the collected money they armed the boyars' children, did not accept the assistance of unclean elements who were ruining the national cause: they refused the help of Margeret, who betrayed the mercenary many times, and the help of the Cossacks, devoted to robbery and murder - Lyapunov's death was still fresh in memory.
Monks and bishops walked with the army, carrying icons in front.
However, this enthusiastic ardor did not exclude political wisdom: they wanted to secure Swedish help against Poland and occupied Del Hardy with negotiations on the election of a Swedish prince to the Moscow throne. When the troops gathered in Yaroslavl, Pozharsky moved towards Moscow, under the walls of which the Cossacks of Zarutsky and Trubetskoy were already standing, but both of these troops, although striving for the same goal, did not want to stand together.
The attempt on Pozharsky's life increased distrust of the Cossacks. But Hetman Khodkevich, who wanted to bring auxiliary troops into Moscow, was defeated by Pozharsky on the right bank of the Moscow River and by the Cossacks on the left.
True, the latter refused to fight at the decisive moment, and only the requests of Abraham Palitsyn forced them to take action; the victory was won thanks to the bold movement of Minin with a selected army.
Then the Poles sitting in the Kremlin were reduced to eating human flesh. They surrendered on the condition that their lives be spared, and they returned the Russian prisoners, among whom was the young Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.
The Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod had already been cleared when the news spread that Sigismund was coming to the aid of the Poles. Help came too late, and Sigismund, having learned about what had happened, turned back.
The devotion of the Russian people liberated the fatherland, and the year 1612 remained in the memory of the Russians.
Now Russia could freely begin to elect a tsar. Elected representatives of the clergy, nobles, boyar children, merchants, townspeople and district people who had the authority to elect the Tsar came to Moscow. First of all, we decided not to elect a foreigner: neither a Pole nor a Swede. When it was necessary to make a choice between the Russians, then intrigues and unrest began again, and finally one name was pronounced that reconciled all parties - the name of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.
He was chosen not for his own sake, for he was only fifteen years old, but for the sake of his Romanov ancestors and his father, Metropolitan Philaret, who was languishing in captivity in Marienburg.
The name of the Romanovs, related to the house of John IV, was then the fullest expression of national feeling (1613).
The new reign had a chance of strength that neither Godunov nor Shuisky had. He could not be accused of a crime; it was based on a marvelous national movement, memories of the liberation of the fatherland and other glorious events were associated with it.
Not a single ghost, not a single bitter memory or regret: the house of Ivan the Terrible was the cause or reason for many sufferings in Russia, False Dmitry killed regret about the true. The accession of the Romanovs to the throne coincided with a powerful awakening of patriotism, with the desire for unity and with a general desire for order and pacification.
They already enjoyed the same devotion that the most ancient dynasty enjoys.
They say that the Poles, having learned about the election of Mikhail, sent armed men to seize him in Kostroma; one peasant, Ivan Susanin, led these envoys into the thicket of the forest and fell under the blows of their sabers, saving his sovereign. The time of troubles is over.
2. Uprising led by S. Razin
The Don Cossacks were generally quite calm at this time, but one of them, Stenka Razin, confused all of eastern Russia.
Settlers from the Dnieper, expelled from their country by the war, were the cause of real famine in the poor Don villages. Stenka gathered several golutvenny people (goly, golyaki) and wanted to try his luck to take Azov. The Don elders prevented him from doing this, then he went to the East, to the Volga and Yaik (Ural). His fame spread far: they said that he was a sorcerer, that neither a saber, nor a bullet, nor a cannonball could take him; robbers flocked to him from all sides. He plundered the Caspian Sea and devastated the shores of Persia.
The Russian government, not being able to fight him, promised to forgive him if he handed over the royal ships and guns he had taken. Razin agreed. Thanks to his exploits, the countless looted wealth and royal generosity, he acquired many followers from the mob, Cossacks and even city archers.
The Volga region was always ready for a social revolution; this explains the success of Razin, and later the success of Pugachev. Robbers were popular and honored there; The merchants who arrived on the Don on commercial business learned that Stenka was launching a raid, and did not think about pestering him.
The whole region was excited at the news of the approach of the already famous chieftain. The residents of Tsaritsyn surrendered their city to him. A fleet was sent against Razin, but the troops and archers handed over their commanders to him, one of whom was thrown from the bell tower. Sailing up the Volga, he took Saratov, Samara and rebelled in the Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov and Penza provinces. Throughout the Volga region, peasants rebelled against their landowners, and the Tatars, Chuvash, Mordovians and Cheremis rebelled against Russian rule.
The mutiny was terrible. Near Simbirsk, Razin was defeated by Yuri Baryatinsky, and the charm he produced disappeared; he was pursued in the steppe, captured on the Don and executed in Moscow (1671).
The rebellion, however, did not stop with the death of Razin: the gangs stubbornly continued to operate. In Astrakhan, Vasily Us ruled despotically and threw the archbishop from the bell tower.
Finally, all these imitators of Razin were killed or captured, the Volga was cleared and the Don was calmed.
3. Peasant war led by E. Pugachev
The Moscow riot showed how deeply barbaric the capital's mob, servants, small traders, and factory workers were still. The Pugachev rebellion showed what personalities still roamed the remote provinces of the empire. The peasants, on whom all the state burdens fell, all the demands of the owners and the extortion of officials, constantly thirsted for impossible changes, in their deep ignorance they were always ready to follow the deceiver, False Peter III, False John VI, even False Paul I used rude minds, prejudiced against "the reign of women."
Add to these dissatisfied vagabonds of all kinds, ruined nobles, disrobed monks, deserters, runaway servants, robbers and Volga bandits. Russia, especially its eastern part, contained all the materials necessary for a huge uprising, such as that raised by False Dmitry or Stenka Razin.
The Yaik Cossacks, who rebelled already in 1766 and were severely punished for it, were destined to give the uprising the expected leader: a fugitive Cossack, a schismatic, who was already in the Kazan prison and fled from Siberia, Emelyan Pugachev, impersonated Peter III; Having dismissed the Holstein banner, he announced that he was going to St. Petersburg to punish his wife and crown his son as king.
With three hundred men, he besieged the Yaitsky town, his army was very small, but all the troops sent against him went over to his side and betrayed their commanders. He usually ordered officers to be hanged and soldiers' hair to be cut in Cossack style; in the villages he hanged landowners; whoever resisted him was punished for it as for rebellion, as for lese majeste.
Thus, he captured many steppe fortresses. While those close to him, who knew the secret of his origin, addressed him easily, the people greeted him with the ringing of bells and with bread and salt. Polish confederates, exiled to these places, organized artillery for him. For almost a whole year, he trembled Kazan and Orenburg and defeated the troops sent against him; landowners fled everywhere, and barbarian peoples came to his main apartment.
The peasants rebelled against the nobles, the Tatars and Chuvash against the Russians; A tribal, social and slave war broke out throughout the Volga basin.
Wow! Bad!" He fully understood that all these disturbances were not the work of one person. “Pugachev is nothing more than a scarecrow played by Cossack thieves,” he wrote, “Pugachev is not important, it is the general indignation that is important. Relying little on his troops, he decided, however, to attack the impostor, defeated him first at Tatishchev, and then at Kagul, scattered his army and captured artillery.
Moscow was ready to rebel. It was necessary to catch Pugachev. Surrounded by troops between the Volga and Yaik, at the moment he was preparing to flee to Persia, pursued by Mikhelson and Suvorov, he was tied up and handed over by his accomplices. He was brought to Moscow and executed. Many did not believe that False Peter III had died, and although the rebellion was pacified, its spirit still existed for a long time.
The Pugachev rebellion served, so to speak, as a lesson for the Russian government, which recalled it in 1775, destroying the Zaporozhye Republic.
The Dnieper braves, expelled under Peter the Great, called again under Anna Ioannovna, did not recognize their former location. Southern Russia, protected from Tatar invasions, was quickly populated: cities sprang up everywhere, arable land captured large and large spaces, the boundless steppes, along which the ancestors of the Cossacks rode as freely as the Arabs through the desert, turned into fields.
The Cossacks were very unhappy with this transformation, they demanded the return of their land, their desert, and patronized the Haidamaks, who were disturbing the settlers.
Potemkin, the creator of Novorossiya, was tired of these restless neighbors. On the orders of the empress, he took and destroyed the Sich. The dissatisfied fled to the domains of the Turkish Sultan, others were transformed into the Black Sea Cossacks, who in 1792 were assigned the Phanagoria Peninsula and the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov for residence.
1606–1607 - uprising led by I.I. Bolotnikova.
– The uprising in Moscow is a “copper riot”.
1670–1671 – Uprising led by S.T. Razin.
1773–1775
– Uprising led by E.I. Pugacheva.
Conclusion
We looked at the topic “peasant uprisings in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries.”
The 17th century was rich in uprisings. Among them are such as the uprisings of Bolotnikov, Khmelnitsky, Khlopok, S.T. Razin. In the 18th century there was the Pugachev uprising and the “Plague Riot”. In all these uprisings the main driving force was the peasantry. Many of them were defeated due to poor weapons, lack of a clear program and goal of the struggle.
However, these peasant wars forced the government to carry out a series of reforms to centralize and unify government bodies in the center and locally and to legislate the class rights of the population.
Bibliography
1. Picturesque history of ancient and modern Russia. – M.: Sovremennik, 2002
2. History of Russia from ancient times to the present day.
– M: “PBOYUL L.V. Rozhnikov", 2008
3. History of Russia. – M: Education, 2005
Peasant uprisings in Russia in the 17th and 18th centuries
Social movements of the “time of troubles”
There were visions in Nizhny Novgorod, in Vladimir. The authorities of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Archimandrite Dionysius and cellarer Palitsyn, sent one letter after another to Russian cities. The Cossacks were agitating distant Kama Rus'. When the Trinity Charters came to Nizhny, and when the archpriest read them to the assembled people, then one of the Nizhny Novgorod citizens, the meat merchant Kuzma Minin, began to say: “If we want to help the Moscow state, then there is no need for us to spare the estate, we will not regret anything: we will sell our houses , we will pawn our wives and children and beat them with our brows - who would stand up for the Orthodox faith and be our boss.”
To sacrifice everything, to arm ourselves - this was the general desire. Minin and other citizens gave a third of their property; one woman, who had 12 thousand rubles, donated 10 thousand. Those who hesitated were forced to sacrifice. Minin agreed to be treasurer, with the only condition that his fellow citizens completely trust him. A leader was needed, the citizens realized that he had to be chosen from among the nobles. At this time, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky lived in Starodub, being treated for wounds he received during the destruction of Moscow.
Minin hit him with his forehead, asking him to be the leader of the army. Preparations began immediately. Before starting we fasted. Russia felt like a sinner: it gave and broke many oaths - to Godunov, his son Feodor, Otrepiev, Shuisky, Vladislav. A three-day fast was prescribed, from which even infants were not excluded.
With the collected money they armed the boyars' children, did not accept the assistance of unclean elements who were ruining the national cause: they refused the help of Margeret, who betrayed the mercenary many times, and the help of the Cossacks, devoted to robbery and murder - Lyapunov's death was still fresh in memory.
Monks and bishops walked with the army, carrying icons in front. However, this enthusiastic ardor did not exclude political wisdom: they wanted to secure Swedish help against Poland and occupied Del Hardy with negotiations on the election of a Swedish prince to the Moscow throne.
When the troops gathered in Yaroslavl, Pozharsky moved towards Moscow, under the walls of which the Cossacks of Zarutsky and Trubetskoy were already standing, but both of these troops, although striving for the same goal, did not want to stand together. The attempt on Pozharsky's life increased distrust of the Cossacks. But Hetman Khodkevich, who wanted to bring auxiliary troops into Moscow, was defeated by Pozharsky on the right bank of the Moscow River and by the Cossacks on the left.
True, the latter refused to fight at the decisive moment, and only the requests of Abraham Palitsyn forced them to take action; the victory was won thanks to the bold movement of Minin with a selected army. Then the Poles sitting in the Kremlin were reduced to eating human flesh.
They surrendered on the condition that their lives be spared, and they returned the Russian prisoners, among whom was the young Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.
The Kremlin and Kitai-Gorod had already been cleared when the news spread that Sigismund was coming to the aid of the Poles. Help came too late, and Sigismund, having learned about what had happened, turned back. The devotion of the Russian people liberated the fatherland, and the year 1612 remained in the memory of the Russians.
Now Russia could freely begin to elect a tsar.
Elected representatives of the clergy, nobles, boyar children, merchants, townspeople and district people who had the authority to elect the Tsar came to Moscow. First of all, we decided not to elect a foreigner: neither a Pole nor a Swede. When it was necessary to make a choice between the Russians, then intrigues and unrest began again, and finally one name was pronounced that reconciled all parties - the name of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov.
He was chosen not for his own sake, for he was only fifteen years old, but for the sake of his Romanov ancestors and his father, Metropolitan Philaret, who was languishing in captivity in Marienburg. The name of the Romanovs, related to the house of John IV, was then the fullest expression of national feeling (1613).
The new reign had a chance of strength that neither Godunov nor Shuisky had.
He could not be accused of a crime; it was based on a marvelous national movement, memories of the liberation of the fatherland and other glorious events were associated with it. Not a single ghost, not a single bitter memory or regret: the house of Ivan the Terrible was the cause or reason for many sufferings in Russia, False Dmitry killed regret about the true.
The accession of the Romanovs to the throne coincided with a powerful awakening of patriotism, with the desire for unity and with a general desire for order and pacification. They already enjoyed the same devotion that the most ancient dynasty enjoys. They say that the Poles, having learned about the election of Mikhail, sent armed men to seize him in Kostroma; one peasant, Ivan Susanin, led these envoys into the thicket of the forest and fell under the blows of their sabers, saving his sovereign.
The time of troubles is over.
Uprising led by S. Razin
The Don Cossacks were generally quite calm at this time, but one of them, Stenka Razin, confused all of eastern Russia. Settlers from the Dnieper, expelled from their country by the war, were the cause of real famine in the poor Don villages.
Stenka gathered several golutvenny people (goly, golyaki) and wanted to try his luck to take Azov. The Don elders prevented him from doing this, then he went to the East, to the Volga and Yaik (Ural). His fame spread far: they said that he was a sorcerer, that neither a saber, nor a bullet, nor a cannonball could take him; robbers flocked to him from all sides.
He plundered the Caspian Sea and devastated the shores of Persia. The Russian government, not being able to fight him, promised to forgive him if he handed over the royal ships and guns he had taken.
Razin agreed. Thanks to his exploits, the countless looted wealth and royal generosity, he acquired many followers from the mob, Cossacks and even city archers. The Volga region was always ready for a social revolution; this explains the success of Razin, and later the success of Pugachev. Robbers were popular and honored there; The merchants who arrived on the Don on commercial business learned that Stenka was launching a raid, and did not think about pestering him.
In 1670, Razin, having spent the stolen money, went with a crowd of golutvenniks up the Don and from there to the Volga.
The whole region was excited at the news of the approach of the already famous chieftain. The residents of Tsaritsyn surrendered their city to him. A fleet was sent against Razin, but the troops and archers handed over their commanders to him, one of whom was thrown from the bell tower.
Sailing up the Volga, he took Saratov, Samara and rebelled in the Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov and Penza provinces. Throughout the Volga region, peasants rebelled against their landowners, and the Tatars, Chuvash, Mordovians and Cheremis rebelled against Russian rule. The mutiny was terrible. Near Simbirsk, Razin was defeated by Yuri Baryatinsky, and the charm he produced disappeared; he was pursued in the steppe, captured on the Don and executed in Moscow (1671).
The rebellion, however, did not stop with the death of Razin: the gangs stubbornly continued to operate.
In Astrakhan, Vasily Us ruled despotically and threw the archbishop from the bell tower. Finally, all these imitators of Razin were killed or captured, the Volga was cleared and the Don was calmed.
Peasant war led by E. Pugachev
The Moscow riot showed how deeply barbaric the capital's mob, servants, small traders, and factory workers were still.
The Pugachev rebellion showed what personalities still roamed the remote provinces of the empire. The peasants, on whom all the state burdens fell, all the demands of the owners and the extortion of officials, constantly thirsted for impossible changes, in their deep ignorance they were always ready to follow the deceiver, False Peter III, False John VI, even False Paul I used rude minds prejudiced against "the reign of women."
The schismatics, wild and driven to despair by previous oppressions, burned in the depths of the forests and in the Volga cities with irreconcilable hatred of the state. The Yaik and Don Cossacks, as well as the Cossacks, trembled from the new yoke of power for them.
The Volga peoples - pagans, Muslims or disaffected Orthodox Christians - were only waiting for an excuse to regain their wild freedom or the lands taken from them by Russian settlers.
How little these unbridled elements agreed with the new state was evident already in 1770, when the Turgai Kalmyks, numbering almost 300 thousand people, men, women and children, took their cattle, tents and carts, crossed the Volga, devastating everything on the way , and retired to the borders of the Chinese Empire.
Add to these dissatisfied vagabonds of all kinds, ruined nobles, disrobed monks, deserters, runaway servants, robbers and Volga bandits.
Russia, especially its eastern part, contained all the materials necessary for a huge uprising, such as that raised by False Dmitry or Stenka Razin. The Yaik Cossacks, who rebelled already in 1766 and were severely punished for it, were destined to give the uprising the expected leader: a fugitive Cossack, a schismatic, who was already in the Kazan prison and fled from Siberia, Emelyan Pugachev, impersonated Peter III; Having dismissed the Holstein banner, he announced that he was going to St. Petersburg to punish his wife and crown his son as king.
With three hundred men, he besieged the Yaitsky town, his army was very small, but all the troops sent against him went over to his side and betrayed their commanders.
He usually ordered officers to be hanged and soldiers' hair to be cut in Cossack style; in the villages he hanged landowners; whoever resisted him was punished for it as for rebellion, as for lese majeste.
Thus, he captured many steppe fortresses. While those close to him, who knew the secret of his origin, addressed him easily, the people greeted him with the ringing of bells and with bread and salt.
Polish confederates, exiled to these places, organized artillery for him. For almost a whole year, he trembled Kazan and Orenburg and defeated the troops sent against him; landowners fled everywhere, and barbarian peoples came to his main apartment. The peasants rebelled against the nobles, the Tatars and Chuvash against the Russians; A tribal, social and slave war broke out throughout the Volga basin.
Moscow, which had 100 thousand serfs, began to worry; The mob, seeing the flight of the landowners from all of Eastern Russia, began to speak loudly about freedom and the beating of the masters. Catherine II instructed Alexander Bibikov to put an end to the disaster. Bibikov, arriving in Kazan, was struck by general demoralization; he calmed and armed the nobles, restrained the people and seemed cheerful and contented, and meanwhile he wrote to his wife: “The evil is great, terrible!
Wow! Bad!" He fully understood that all these disturbances were not the work of one person. “Pugachev is nothing more than a scarecrow played by Cossack thieves,” he wrote, “Pugachev is not important, it is the general indignation that is important.
Relying little on his troops, he decided, however, to attack the impostor, defeated him first at Tatishchev, and then at Kagul, scattered his army and captured artillery.
Bibikov died amid his successes, but Mikhelson, de Collonges and Golitsyn continued to pursue the vanquished. Pugachev, driven along the lower reaches of the Volga, suddenly turned up the river, rushed to Kazan, burned and plundered it, but failed in the capture of the Kazan fortress and was completely defeated on the banks of the Kazanka; then he sailed down the Volga, entered Saransk, Samara and Tsaritsyn, where, despite relentless pursuit by the imperial troops, he hanged the nobles and established a new government.
While he was heading south, the people were waiting for him on the way to Moscow; in response to this expectation, False Peters III and the False Pugachevs appeared everywhere, who, becoming the head of unbridled gangs, hanged landowners and burned their estates.
Moscow was ready to rebel. It was necessary to catch Pugachev. Surrounded by troops between the Volga and Yaik, at the moment he was preparing to flee to Persia, pursued by Mikhelson and Suvorov, he was tied up and handed over by his accomplices. He was brought to Moscow and executed.
Many did not believe that False Peter III had died, and although the rebellion was pacified, its spirit still existed for a long time.
The Pugachev rebellion served, so to speak, as a lesson for the Russian government, which recalled it in 1775, destroying the Zaporozhye Republic. The Dnieper braves, expelled under Peter the Great, called again under Anna Ioannovna, did not recognize their former location.
Southern Russia, protected from Tatar invasions, was quickly populated: cities sprang up everywhere, arable land captured large and large spaces, the boundless steppes, along which the ancestors of the Cossacks rode as freely as the Arabs through the desert, turned into fields. The Cossacks were very unhappy with this transformation, they demanded the return of their land, their desert, and patronized the Haidamaks, who were disturbing the settlers. Potemkin, the creator of Novorossiya, was tired of these restless neighbors.
On the orders of the empress, he took and destroyed the Sich. The dissatisfied fled to the domains of the Turkish Sultan, others were transformed into the Black Sea Cossacks, who in 1792 were assigned the Phanagoria Peninsula and the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov for residence.
This is how the Cossacks ended: they live only in the songs of the kobzars.
Chronology of popular uprisings in Russia in the 17th–18th centuries.
1603 - uprising led by Cotton.
1606–1607 - uprising led by I. I. Bolotnikov.
1648–1650 - uprising of Bohdan Khmelnitsky.
1662 - Uprising in Moscow - “copper riot”.
1670–1671 - Uprising led by S.
T. Razin.
1698 – Uprising of the Streltsy in Moscow.
1771 – “Plague riot” in Moscow.
1773–1775 – Uprising led by E.I. Pugachev.