In the article "The Persian Campaign of Stepan Razin" we have already mentioned a mysterious girl who for some reason was drowned by the famous chieftain. According to the most common version, she was a Persian princess, the daughter of Mamed Khan (Magmedi Khanbek), who commanded the Shah's fleet. Allegedly, she was captured during a naval battle at the Pig Island along with her brother Shabyn-Debei.
Supporters of this version were such authoritative historians as N. I. Kostomarov and V. M. Soloviev.
The problem is that this girl is most likely quite real, but she was hardly a Persian, and even more so a princess. Folk songs and legends remember her, but she is not called a Persian, much less a princess. Most often in them she is the sister of one of the Esauls, Stepan Razin:
A light boat was sailing, The ataman boat is light, Ataman Stenka Razin.
In the middle of the boat is a brocade tent.
As in that brocade tent
There are barrels of the golden treasury.
A red maiden is sitting at the treasury -
Ataman's lover, Esaulova's sister, The girl is sitting, she is thoughtful, After sitting, she began to say:
Listen, good fellows, Like me, young, did not sleep much, I slept a little, I saw a lot, The dream was not selfish to me:
The chieftain must be shot, Yesaulu something to be hanged, Cossacks rowers in prisons, And I will drown in Mother Volga."
Razin did not like the prediction, and he decided to implement the last part of the prophecy of this uninvited “Cassandra” immediately: “he donated to Mother Volga”. With the full approval of both the narrator and all the other characters in this song: "This is what a daring ataman Stenka Razin, nicknamed Timofeevich, was like!"
But there are also two serious sources recognized by all researchers who also talk about this prisoner of Razin - books written by the Dutch in the Russian service and published abroad.
Jan Jansen Struis and his three "Travels"
A notable Persian origin was attributed to this girl by the Dutch sailmaster Jan Jansen Struis, who served on the first Russian ship of the European type "Eagle". When reading his biography, one involuntarily recalls the lines of Sergei Yesenin (from the poem "The Black Man"):
There was a man that adventurer, But the highest
And the best brand.
In 1647, at the age of 17, he ran away from home, enlisted on the Genoese merchant ship "St. John the Baptist" and in 4 years managed to sail on it to Africa, Siam, Japan, Sumatra and Formosa. As part of the Venetian fleet in 1655 he took part in the war with the Ottomans, was captured, in which he spent two years. In 1668 he entered the Russian service. On the ship "Eagle" he reached Astrakhan, where, according to him, he met with the ataman Razin, who returned in 1669 from a campaign to the Caspian Sea: the Razins then sold their booty in the markets of this city for 6 weeks.
After this ship was captured by the Razin Cossacks in 1670, he fled in a boat across the Caspian Sea, but got out of the fire and into the fire - he was captured by the Dagestani highlanders, who decided to sell it in Shemakha. Here, with the help of another "Russian Dutchman", officer Ludwig Fabricius, the Polish envoy managed to ransom him. On the way home he was again taken prisoner - this time to the British, he returned home only in October 1673. In July 1675, he again went to Russia - as a groom in the retinue of the Ambassador Extraordinary of the States General of Holland and Prince of Orange Kunraad fan-Klenk. Here he asked for the payment of his due salary, the result of this appeal to Russian officials is unknown. In September of the following year, Struis returned to Holland through Arkhangelsk, at the same time his book "Three Journeys" was first published in Amsterdam, with excerpts from which you could get acquainted in the first article.
Among other things, it tells about the "Persian princess" and her execution:
Razin, on a painted and partly gilded boat, feasted with some of his subordinates (foremen). Next to him was the daughter of the Persian Khan, whom he and her brother had captured in one of his last campaigns. Flushed with wine, he sat down on the edge of the boat and, looking thoughtfully at the river, suddenly exclaimed:
"Glorious Volga! You bring me gold, silver and various jewels, you have nurtured and nurtured me, you are the beginning of my happiness and glory, and I have not given you anything yet. Now accept a sacrifice worthy of you!"
With these words, he seized the unfortunate Persian woman, whose whole crime was that she submitted to the violent desires of the robber, and threw her into the waves. However, Stenka came to such a frenzy only after feasts, when wine darkened his reason and inflamed passions.
Ludwig Fabricius and his version
Ludwig Fabricius, another Dutchman in the Russian service, author of the Notes, also quoted in the first article, arrived in Astrakhan a year before Strøis. In June 1670, near Cherny Yar, he, along with his stepfather, was captured by Stepan Razin and was in his detachment until the fall. It is believed that it was Fabritius who, during the siege of Astrakhan, wrote a letter in German to the commander of foreign soldiers, Captain Butler, in which he urged him "not to put up any resistance with his people." After the capture of Astrakhan, he, apparently, finally switched to the service of Razin: he walked freely around the city, while shaving his head, growing a beard, and wearing a Cossack dress. Fabritius himself ironically pointed out in his notes that "he began to look a little like a Christian." He personally turned to Razin with a request to pardon Butler, who had been caught trying to escape. Fabritius himself describes the conversation with the chieftain as follows:
Razin was in a good mood and said: "Take the officer under your protection, but the Cossacks must get something for their work."
And Fabritius bought Butler from the Cossacks, giving him his share of the "duvan".
Yes, after the seizure of Astrakhan, the Dutch officer was also not deprived when dividing the spoils. He himself writes about this: "… it was ordered that all appear under the threat of death to receive their share." And the metropolitan of the city as well.
What can you say here? Just like in the Cossack song: "You don't have to grieve with our chieftain." Stern dad, but fair.
However, with the leader of the rebels who showed such nobility, Fabritius himself did not act quite honestly: under his guarantee, the doctor Termund was released to Persia for medicines, with whom, under the guise of a servant, Butler later left. But the Dutchman, apparently, did not lose his confidence, because in the fall of 1670 Fyodor Sheludyak (assistant to Vasily Usa, who was left in Astrakhan by the city ataman), released him to buy food in Terki, from where Fabritius fled. In 1672 he returned from Iran to Astrakhan and served in the Russian army until 1678.
Ludwig Fabricius tells the story of the mysterious "princess" in a different way. He claims that, even before the start of the Persian campaign - during the winter of Razin in the Yaitsky stone town, a very beautiful Tatar girl was captured by the Cossacks, whom the ataman took to him and, it seems, was seriously carried away by her: he almost never parted and drove everywhere with yourself. And here's what happened next:
But first (before entering the Caspian Sea) Stenka sacrificed a beautiful and noble Tatar maiden in a very unusual way. A year ago he filled her, and to this day he has shared a bed with her. And so, before his retreat, he got up early in the morning, dressed the poor girl in her best dresses and said that last night he had a formidable appearance of the water god Ivan Gorinovich, to whom the river Yaik was subject; he reproached him for the fact that he, Stenka, had been so lucky for three years, had seized so much goods and money with the help of the water god Ivan Gorinovich, but had not kept his promises. After all, when he first came on his boats to the Yaik River, he promised God Gorinovich:
"If I will be lucky with your help, then you can expect the best from me that I will get."
Then he grabbed the unfortunate woman and threw her in full dress into the river with the following words:
"Accept this, my patron Gorinovich, I have nothing better that I could bring you as a gift or sacrifice than this beauty."
The thief had a son from this woman, he sent him to Astrakhan to the metropolitan with a request to raise the boy in the Christian faith and sent 1000 rubles at the same time.
1000 rubles - the amount at that time is simply fantastic, some even believe that the publisher of the book made a typo, attributing an extra zero. But even 100 rubles is very, very serious. Razin apparently really loved both his unfortunate friend and her son.
A vulgar melodrama or a lofty tragedy?
Thus, both Dutchmen claim that the young and beautiful captive of Razin was drowned by him, but they give different versions of her origin and speak of different motives of the chieftain.
In the story by Streuss, Razin looks like an ordinary leader of a bandit gang who kills an innocent girl purely out of drunkenness - a person “could not drink”, what can you do (“came into such a frenzy only after feasts”). Banal "everyday life". This is a plot for a vulgar "thug romance" (works of this genre are now called "Russian chanson") and no less vulgar "tavern" pictures like the one that you will see below - no more.
In the same swagger-cranberry style, the first Russian fictional "film" was filmed, "The Libertine Freeman" ("Stenka Razin") - based on the "epic" of a certain V. Goncharov, who, in turn, was "inspired" by the urban romance of D. Sadovnikov “From across the island to the rod” (Ivan Bunin called it “a vulgar wild song”). The plot of the film is as follows: Stenka Razin with his Cossacks retreats from the archers pursuing him from the Volga to the Don, but because of the beautiful Persian woman he always stops for drunken parties. Dissatisfied Esauls slip a fake letter to the drunken chieftain, from which it follows that the "princess" is cheating on him with some kind of "Prince Hassan" and Stepan, in a fit of jealousy, is drowning the "traitor" in the Volga. In general, kitsch is absolutely hellish, there is no other way to put it.
N. D. Anoshchenko, aviator, commander of the 5th Army Aeronautical Detachment of the Northern Front of World War I and assistant head of the Field Directorate of Aviation and Aeronautics since 1920, who later became a famous cinematographer (his "cinema projector with continuous film movement" in 1929 received patent in the USA) recalled:
“When, many years later, I again had to see this picture on the screen of the educational viewing room of VGIK, then nothing but sincere laughter at its naivety and pseudo-historicity, as well as the ridiculous stiltedness of the actors' play, this“masterpiece”could not cause either me or my students."
Returning to the romance "From the Island to the Rod", it should be said that it never really became a folk song. I still remember very well the real Russian weddings, which I managed to attend in childhood and adolescence in the 60s - 70s of the last XX century - with an accordion and songs of blushing grandmothers. What did they sing then? Their repertoire included Nekrasov's Korobochka and Khasbulat the Brave by Ammosov. “Oh, frost, frost”, “Gypsy girl”, “Someone has come down from the hill”, “On the mountain is a collective farm, under the mountain is a state farm”, “Girl Nadia” in different variations."Kalinka" is not a burdensome one, to which Rodnina and Zaitsev danced, but a cheerful and lively one: "Oh, I got up early, I washed my face whitewashed." Even the Ukrainian "Ti z me pidmanula". And some other songs. Probably, it will seem ridiculous, but I have a persistent feeling that only after hearing these grandmothers, and these songs (many of which, probably, modern youth have not even heard) I “identified” myself, for the first time in my life I felt it was Russian. But I have never heard them singing "From the Island to the Rod": the people did not accept this interpretation of the image of their beloved chieftain.
By the way, in some folk songs and "tales" Razin is completely whitewashed: the "prophetic maiden of Solomonides" thrown into the water by him becomes the mistress of the underwater kingdom and then helps him in every possible way.
But in the story of Ludwig Fabricius, Stepan Razin is already a hero of a high tragedy, for the sake of a common cause sacrificing the most valuable that he had at that time.
Marina Tsvetaeva caught this mood in her poems:
And Razin's bottom is dreaming:
Flowers - like a carpet board.
And one face is dreaming -
Forgotten, black-browed.
Sits, exactly the Mother of God, Yes, pearls are low on a string.
And he wants to tell her
Yes, he only moves his lips …
Gasping for breath - already
Glass, in the chest, a shard.
And he walks like a sleepy guard
Glass - between them - canopy …
And ring-ring, ring-ring wrists:
- You have sunk, Stepan's happiness!
At the same time, the book by Streuss, according to which one could write a famously twisted adventure novel, came out earlier, was a great success, and Ludwig Fabricius, who is well acquainted with Streuss, could not help but know about it, but he deliberately refutes the compatriot's version, although it would seem, why? What does it matter to him?
Which of these Dutch people is worth believing?
Critical analysis
First of all, it should be said that the capture of the "Persian princess" by the Razins during a naval battle is nowhere and is not confirmed by anything. But the fact of the capture of the son of Mamed Khan Shabyn-Debei by the Cossacks - on the contrary, does not cause doubts in anyone. He was brought to Astrakhan and handed over to the Russian authorities there. Known for his petition to return to his homeland, in which he says nothing about his mythical sister.
The Persian ambassador to Russia in 1673 demands compensation for the damage caused to his countries by the "pirates" of Razin. His message also says about the son of Mamed Khan, but nothing about the daughter of the admiral.
The secretary of the Swedish embassy in Persia, Engelbert Kempfer, who visited this country in 1684-1685, recounts in his notes about the battle of Pig Island in 1669. He claims that Magmedi Khanbek (Mamed Khan) himself was taken prisoner, apparently confusing him with his son, and names 5 more people by their names, taken away by the Cossacks - among them only men, not a single woman.
Yes, and it would be strange to the Persian admiral, who perfectly understood what cruel and terrible opponents he had to fight against, to take a young daughter on his ship.
But maybe the "princess" was taken prisoner on land? A suitable city in this case would be Farrakhabad, captured so suddenly that no one managed to hide from the Cossacks. This assumption is refuted by Jean Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who lived for a long time in Persia and left notes about the plundering of Farrakhabad by the Razin. And such a loud and scandalous incident as the capture of the daughter of a high-ranking nobleman, of course, could not have gone unnoticed, but the Frenchman knows nothing about him.
In the verdict of Stepan Razin, passed by the Russian authorities, he was accused that in the Caspian Sea he "robbed the inhabitants of Persia and took goods from merchants, or even killed them … ruined … some cities", killed "several eminent merchants of the Persian Shah and other foreign merchants: Persians, Indians, Turks, Armenians and Bukharians who came to Astrakhan. " And again, not a word about the “Persian princess.
Finally, it must be remembered that it was customary for the Cossacks to divide any booty, including prisoners, only after returning from the campaign (in this they were in solidarity with the corsairs and privatizers of the Caribbean). The appropriation of undivided booty was considered a serious crime, “theft”, for which, without further ado, they could “put in the water” (this execution was described in the previous article). And the duty of the chieftain was to monitor the strictest observance of this custom, there could be no talk of any "abuse of office": the "father" earned their authority for years, if not decades, and risking it because of some pretty girl - absolutely not an option. Razin, of course, could lay claim to it already in Astrakhan - at the expense of his share of the booty, and the Cossacks would certainly respect him. But there all the noble captives from Razin were taken away by the governor Prozorovsky, including the supposed brother of the "princess" - Shabyn-Debei. And, of course, he would not have left him the daughter of the Persian Khan, and there was simply nowhere to hide her on the plows.
Few people know that in the middle of the last century, this story interested the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR A. A. Gromyko. Andrei Andreevich has always very carefully prepared for negotiations with foreign partners (both in the direct meaning of this word and in its current figurative meaning). And on the eve of an important meeting with representatives of Iran, he instructed his referees to check whether some historical circumstances could interfere with the constructive dialogue. In particular, a study was conducted of the circumstances of the Persian campaign of Stepan Razin. The experts' conclusion was unequivocal: no noble Persians disappeared in the "zone of responsibility" of the famous chieftain.
Therefore, the version of Ludwig Fabricius looks more preferable. Moreover, many modern researchers consider the work of Struis to be more a literary work than a memoir, pointing out that many of the factual data about Russia and Persia of those years were probably taken by him from the book of Adam Olearius "Description of the journey of the Holstein embassy to Muscovy and Persia", published in Schleswig in 1656. In his Notes, Fabritius strictly follows the genre of memoirs, describing in a laconic manner only those events in which he was a direct participant. And if Ludwig Fabricius, who, we recall, was in Razin's army for several months, could know the circumstances of the death of the mysterious "princess" firsthand, then Jan Streis, who saw the ataman several times, but was hardly personally acquainted with him, most likely, retold some rumors.
