In the previous article ("Razinschina. Beginning of the Peasant War"), it was told about the events of the turbulent 1670: Stepan Razin's new campaign on the Volga, the first successes of the rebels, their defeat at Simbirsk. It was also mentioned that several detachments were sent by Razin to Penza, Saransk, Kozmodemyansk and some other cities.
"Field commanders" of the Peasant War
It is, of course, impossible to tell about all the "chieftains" of that time in one article. Let's try to briefly mention at least some of them. We have already talked about Vasily Usa and Fyodor Sheludyak, and in the near future we will continue this story. In the meantime, a little about the other leaders of the rebel detachments of this Peasant War.
Mikhail Kharitonov, who came with Razin from the Don, took control of a huge territory between the Sura and the Volga, first capturing Yushansk, Tagan, Uren, Korsun, Sursk, and then Atemar, Insar, Saransk, Penza, Narovchat, Verkhny and Nizhny Lomovs. In the Penza region, he united with the detachments of other atamans - Fedorov, Chirk and Shilov (there were rumors about Shilov that it was Stepan Razin himself in disguise). In Saransk, Kharitonov managed to organize arms workshops. Here are some "lovely letters" he sent around:
“We sent the Kozaks of the Lysogorsk Sidar Ledenev and Gavrila Boldyrev to you for the gathering and advice of the great army. And now we are in Tanbov on November 9 in the osprey, we have a troop strength of 42,000, and we have 20 pushers, and we have half a five and a half poods of potions. And you would be welcome atamans and hammers, eager to help us with guns and potions day and night in haste. And the Don chieftain wrote to us from Orzamas that our Cossacks beat Prince Yurya Dolgarukovo with all his army, and he had 120 pushak, and 1500 potions. for Stepan Timofeevich, and for all the pro-Orthodox Christian faith … But will you not go to us in gathering for a council, and you will be executed from a great army, and your wives and children will be chopped up and your houses will be rosary, and your bellies and statues will be taken will go to the troops."
Kharitonov and Fedorov reached Shatsk (a city in the modern Ryazan region), but on October 17 they were thrown back by the detachments of the Smolensk and Roslavl gentry, who 15 years ago were subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Voivode Khitrovo wrote about this hard and stubborn battle as follows:
“Colonel Denis Shvyikovsky with his Smolensk, Belskoy and Roslavskoy gentry approached the village with brutal attacks, not sparing their heads, came to the thieves 'train, on the thieves' people, flogged and broke the train; a lot of the gentry were wounded with severe wounds, pierced through with lances and spears, some of the arquebuses and bows were shot through”.
In November 1670, Kharitonov was defeated by the troops of Prince Yu. Baryatinsky, retreated to Penza, was captured and was executed in December of this year.
Vasily Fedorov, mentioned above, was either a Saratov archer or a soldier of the Belgorod regiment who fled to the Don, where he "lived in the Cossacks." Fyodorov was chosen by the rebels as the "city ataman" of Saratov. He was also captured and executed in December 1670.
Maxim Osipov, sent by Razin at the head of 30 Cossacks "with lovely letters to go and take the freemen into the Cossacks," in a short time gathered an entire army of 1,500 people, which even had guns. With this detachment, Osipov in the late spring of 1671 went to the aid of Fyodor Sheludyak, whose troops attacked Simbirsk, but was late. However, the appearance of Osipov caused great dismay in Simbirsk, where his detachment was mistaken for a new army of rebels. With 300 soldiers remaining with him, he eventually made his way to Tsaritsyn, but by that time this city was no longer controlled by the Razins and Osipov's detachment was finally defeated. It happened in late July - early August 1671.
Ataman Akay Bolyayev, also known as Murzakayko, operated in eastern Mordovia, the number of his detachment reached 15 thousand people. Prince Baryatinsky describes the battle with Bolyaev's rebels near Ust-Urenskaya Sloboda as a big and difficult battle:
“And they, the thieves, stood behind the Kandaratskaya river under the settlement, got out with the regiments of horse and foot and set up a baggage train, and with them 12 cannons … he stepped on all the regiments of cavalry on their cavalry regiments."
The rebels were defeated, Bolyaev was wounded, but a month later he again fought near the villages of Bayevo and Turgenevo (December 7 and 8, 1670), was defeated and tried to hide in his native village of Kostyashevo (about 17 km from Saransk). Here he was issued by fellow countrymen to the tsarist punishers and in December 1670 quartered in Krasnaya Sloboda.
On the territory of Chuvashia, a detachment of Izylbay Kabaev operated, in which "there were Russians, Tatars, and Chuvash with 3000 people." At the end of December 1670, together with the "atamans of the Russians" Vasilyev and Bespaly, he attacked the convoy of the voivode Prince Baryatinsky, but was defeated near the village of Dosayevo, was captured and was executed.
Ilya Ponomarev, who is also mentioned under the names Ivanov, Popov and Dolgopolov, was a native of the city of Kad and a Mari by nationality. A description of his appearance has survived: "He is an average person, with light brown hair, oblong in the face, straight nose, oblong, small beard, with small bruises, blacker than hair."
With Stepan Razin's "lovely letter" he was seized in the Kozmodemyansk district and sent to prison. But already on October 3, 1670, the inhabitants of Kozmodemyansk opened the gates in front of a small detachment of Razins (30 people), Ponomarev was released and elected ataman. After the failure at Tsivilsk, he took his detachment to the Vetluzhskaya volost, where the city of Unzha was taken. The frightened Solikamsk voivode I. Monastyrev reported to Moscow that he had no one to live with … it was dangerous and scary to live.
Ponomarev was also captured and hanged in Totma in December 1670, terrible for the rebels.
Alena Arzamasskaya (Temnikovskaya)
Among the commanders of the rebels was one woman - a certain Alena, a native of Vyyezdnaya Sloboda (near Arzamas). Widowed, she went to a monastery, where she soon became known as a herbalist. Having learned about Razin's uprising, she managed with her speeches to attract about 200 neighboring peasants to her side, whom she led to the Oka - initially to Kasimov, but then turned to Temnikov. Already 600 people have come to this city with her.
Here, her squad joined with other rebel forces. The chief chieftain was Fyodor Sidorov, who in September 1670 was released from the Saransk prison by differences.
An anonymous foreign author in "A message regarding the details of the mutiny carried out in Muscovy by Stenka Razin," reports that under the command of Alena and Sidorov, a 7,000-strong army had gathered.
Boyar's son M. Vedenyapin, in a report dated November 28, 1670, wrote at all:
“And in Temnikov, sir, there are 4,000 thieves' men, having settled down from a cannon. Yes, in Temnikovsky, sir, in the forest on the notches on the Arzamas road … there are thieves' people from Temnikov, 10 miles 8000 with a fiery battle. Yes to them … they came from the Troetsky prison … with a cannon and with a small gun with 300 people."
But modern researchers believe that the total number of the rebels hardly exceeded 5 thousand people. Their combined troops defeated the detachment of the commander of Arzamas, Leonty Shansukov.
In December 1670, the Temnikov rebels were defeated, Sidorov managed to hide in the surrounding forests, and those who remained in the city, including Alena, were handed over to the governor Yu. A. Dolgoruky. Alena shocked the executioners by the fact that she silently endured all the torture, on the basis of which it was concluded that she was a witch who did not feel pain. The already mentioned author of "Messages regarding the details of the mutiny …" wrote:
“She did not flinch and did not show any fear when she heard the sentence: to be burned alive. Before she died, she wished that more people would be found who would act as they should and fought as bravely as she, then, probably, Prince Yuri would have turned back. Before her death, she made the sign of the cross … calmly went to the fire and was burned to ashes."
This "Message …" in 1671 was published in Holland and Germany, and in 1672 - in England and France, therefore in Europe they learned about this courageous woman earlier than in Russia.
A certain Johann Frisch also wrote about Alena:
“A few days after his (Razin's) execution, a nun was burned, who, being with him (at the same time), like an Amazon, surpassed men in her unusual courage” (1677).
Continuation of the Peasant War
Razin's emissaries also mutinied the peasants near Efremov, Novosilsk, Tula, and Borovsk, Kashira, Yuryev-Polsky revolted without their participation. From October to December 1670, a five-thousand-strong detachment of neighboring peasants, led by ataman Meshcheryakov, besieged and stormed Tambov twice. But the rebels who remained without a leader were defeated in the Volga region, in the Tambov region and in the Slobozhanshchina (Slobodskaya Ukraine).
The return to the Don was probably a fatal mistake of Stepan Razin: he had nothing to do there, almost all the Cossacks who sympathized with him were already in his army, and the foremen and "homely" were not delighted with the return of the rebellious chieftain, fearing a punitive expedition of Moscow troops. In Astrakhan, nothing threatened Razin, and his name alone would have attracted thousands of people ready to fight under his command.
But Razin was not going to give up. When Vasily Us asked him what to do with the treasury kept by him, the chieftain replied that in the spring he would come to Astrakhan, and ordered to build plows "more than before." At that time, detachments from Astrakhan, Krasny Yar, Cherny Yar, Saratov, Samara and other cities arrived in Tsaritsyn - in total, about 8 thousand people gathered on 370 plows. Fyodor Sheludyak, chosen ataman in Tsaritsyn, came there with the Astrakhan people.
Betrayal
It is difficult to say how events would have developed further if the homely Cossacks, led by the military ataman Korney Yakovlev (the godfather of Stepan Razin), had not taken by storm Kagalnik, where the ataman was located. At the end of April 1671, the leader of the rebels was captured and handed over to the tsarist authorities.
Until 1979, on the wall of the Resurrection Cathedral in the village of Starocherkasskaya, one could see the chains with which, according to legend, Kornil Yakovlev bound his captured godson, Stepan Razin. They were stolen during the renovation and have now been replaced with duplicates:
In the same cathedral there is the grave of Kornila Yakovlev.
The traitors were paid their thirty pieces of silver - a "special salary" in the amount of three thousand silver rubles, four thousand quarters of bread, 200 buckets of wine, 150 poods of gunpowder and lead.
Stepan Razin and his brother Frol were taken to Moscow on June 2, 1671. According to the testimony of an unknown Englishman, about a mile from the city, the rebels were met by a prepared cart with a gallows, on which the chieftain was placed:
“The former silk caftan was torn from the rebel, dressed in rags and placed under the gallows, chaining him with an iron chain around his neck to the upper crossbar. Both his hands were chained to the posts of the gallows, his legs were spread. His brother Frolka was tied with an iron chain to the cart and walked along the side of it. This picture was observed by "a great multitude of people of high and low rank."
The investigation was short-lived: continuous torture lasted 4 days, but Stepan Razin was silent, and on June 6, 1671, he and his brother were sentenced: "Execute with an evil death - quartered."
Since the ataman had already been excommunicated and anathematized by Patriarch Josaph, he was denied a confession before execution.
Thomas Hebdon, a representative of the British Russian Company who witnessed the execution, sent a message about it to the Hamburg newspaper "Northern Mercury":
“Razin was put on a seven-foot-high cart specially made for this occasion: there he stood so that all the people - and there were more than 100,000 of them - could see him. A gallows was erected on the cart, under which he stood while he was being taken to the place of execution. He was tightly chained with chains: one very large one went around his hips and went down to his feet, the other he was chained by the neck. A plank was nailed in the middle of the gallows that supported his head; his arms were stretched out to the side and nailed to the edges of the wagon, and blood was flowing from them. His brother, too, was in chains on his arms and legs, and his hands were chained to the cart, after which he had to go. He seemed very shy, so the leader of the rebels often encouraged him, saying to him one day:
"You know that we started something that even with even greater success, we could not expect a better end."
Interrupting the quote to see Hebdon's drawing:
And below is a still from the Soviet film Stepan Razin, filmed in 1939:
Continuation of the quote:
“This Razin kept his angry appearance of a tyrant all the time and, as it was evident, was not at all afraid of death. His royal majesty showed mercy to us, the Germans and other foreigners, as well as to the Persian ambassador, and under the protection of many soldiers they took us closer so that we could see this execution better than others, and would tell our compatriots about it. Some of us were even splattered with blood."
Stepan Razin was quartered in the Execution Ground, and his brother Frol prolonged his torment for several years, shouting at the scaffold "the word and deed of the Tsar."
Razin, according to the testimony of Marcius, “He was so adamant in spirit that already without arms and legs, he retained his usual voice and facial expression, when, looking at his surviving brother, who was being led in chains, he called out to him:“Be quiet, dog!”.
Stepan Razin was excommunicated, and therefore, according to some sources, his remains were later buried in the Muslim (Tatar) cemetery (behind the Kaluga gate).
Frol Razin promised to give the authorities "thieves 'treasures" and "thieves' letters" hidden in a tarred jug, but neither the mysterious jug nor the treasures were found. About his execution, which took place on Bolotnaya Square on May 26, 1676, the secretary of the Dutch embassy Balthasar Coyet reported:
“He has been in captivity for almost six years, where he was tortured in every possible way, hoping that he would say something else. He was taken through the Intercession Gate to the Zemstvo court, and from here, accompanied by a judge and hundreds of foot archers, to the place of execution, where his brother was also executed. Here the verdict was read, which appointed him to be beheaded and decreed that his head would be put on a pole. When his head was cut off, as is customary here, and put on a stake, everyone went home."
On the same day with Stepan Razin (June 6, 1671), “the young man whom the ataman passed off as the elder prince (Alexei Alekseevich)” was also executed at the Execution Ground - his appearance in the camp of the rebels was described in a previous article. His real name remained unknown: he did not name it even under the most cruel torture.
It was suggested that under this name the ataman Maxim Osipov (which was mentioned at the beginning of the article) or the Kabardian prince Andrei Cherkassky, who was taken prisoner by the Razins, could be hiding. However, it is known for certain that Osipov was captured only in July 1671 - a month after the execution of False Alexei. As for Andrei Cherkassky, he survived and after the suppression of the uprising continued to serve Alexei Mikhailovich.
It is curious that at the end of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, False Simeon appeared (posing as another son of this ruler from Maria Miloslavskaya, who was 12 years younger than Tsarevich Alexei). He "showed up" among the Cossacks, it is believed that this impostor was a certain Warsaw bourgeois Matyushka.
Fyodor Sheludyak's hike
Before the execution, Stepan Razin proudly declared in front of all the people (and there were about one hundred thousand people gathered by the authorities):
“You think you killed Razin, but you didn't catch the real one; and there are many more Razins who will avenge my death."
These words were heard and spread throughout Russia.
Already after the suppression of the uprising in the city of Pronsk, one of the artisans, having heard from the soldier Larion Panin that "the thief and traitor Stepan Razin with his thieves' rabble was defeated and his de, Stenka, was wounded," said: "Where can you beat Stenka Razin!"
Panin denounced him to the voivode, and these seditious words frightened the local authorities so much that the case was examined in Moscow, where the verdict was passed:
“The great sovereign pointed out, and the boyars sentenced the peasant Yeropkin Simoshka Bessonov for such words to inflict punishment: to beat him with a whip mercilessly, but he had to cut his tongue so that it would not be common for others to say such words in the future.”
And the comrades-in-arms of the rebellious chieftain really continued the struggle even after his arrest and death. They still controlled the Lower Volga region, and in the spring of 1671 Fyodor Sheludyak again led the rebels to Simbirsk. On June 9 (after three days of Razin's execution) this city was besieged, but it was not possible to take it. Having suffered heavy losses during two assaults, to which they were led by Ataman Fyodor Sveshnikov and a resident of Tsaritsyn Ivan Bylinin, the rebels withdrew. In addition, news came about a serious illness, and then about the death of Vasily Usa, who remained in Astrakhan. This chieftain was buried with all sorts of honors, in all Astrakhan churches a panikhida was served for him. For the rebels, this was a very heavy loss, since in their midst Vasily Us was the second person after Razin, and even European newspapers reported about his death (for example, "Dutch messenger letters" - "Chimes"). A few days before his death in Astrakhan, Metropolitan Joseph and the governor S. Lvov, who had been taken prisoner in 1670 near Cherny Yar, were accused of having relations with the Moscow authorities and Don elders, which they handed over to the authorities of Stepan Razin. Until that time, both the one and the other, according to the testimony of Fabricius, were not subjected to special harassment and even received their share during the division of the "duvan" - along with all the inhabitants of the city: "Even the metropolitan, general and voivode had to take their share of the spoils."
As for Simbirsk, in 1672, for the "two-time brave defense" from the troops of Razin and Sheludyak, this city was granted a coat of arms depicting a lion standing on three legs with a protruding tongue, a sword in its left paw, and a three-petalled crown over its head.
Siege of Astrakhan by tsarist troops
Fyodor Sheludyak brought only two thousand people from Simbirsk to Tsaritsyn, but there was not enough food in this city, scurvy began, and therefore the ataman decided to leave for Astrakhan. It was he who led the resistance to the soon approaching tsarist troops (30 thousand people), which were headed by the Simbirsk governor I. B. Miloslavsky (he defended this city during his siege by Razin's army). The number of defenders of Astrakhan did not exceed 6 thousand people. Despite the obvious superiority in forces and the received reinforcements (troops of Prince K. M. Cherkassky), the siege of this city lasted three months.
And on the Don at this time, many "thrashing people" refused to "kiss the cross" for loyalty to the tsar.
Only after three days of unrest at the Cossack Circle in Cherkassk, Kornil Yakovlev managed to convince the Don Army to take the oath. But the Donets evaded a campaign to the rebellious Astrakhan, stating that they were expecting a raid by the Crimean Tatars.
Finally, Prince I. Miloslavsky made a solemn promise that, in case of surrender, "not a hair will fall from the heads of the townspeople."
On November 27, 1671, Astrakhan was surrendered, and, most amazingly, Miloslavsky kept his word. But the joy of the Astrakhan people was premature: in July 1672, Prince Ya. N. Odoevsky, the former head of the Investigative Order, who did not take any oaths, was appointed governor of the city instead of Miloslavsky. Astrakhan by this time was completely pacified, there were no unrest and no reason for mass executions, but they followed - and immediately. One of the first was captured by Fyodor Sheludyak, who was hanged after long and cruel torture.
A Dutch officer in the Russian service, Ludwig Fabritius, who can by no means be "accused" of sympathizing with the rebels, wrote about Odoevsky:
“He was a ruthless man. He was very bitter against the rioters … He raged to horror: he commanded many who should be quartered alive, who should be burned alive, who should have their tongue cut out of their throats, who should be buried alive in the ground … But it was a sin to do this with Christians, then he replied that it was still too soft for such dogs, and he immediately ordered to hang the one who would intercede next time. Such was the fate of the guilty and the innocent. He was so accustomed to human torment that in the morning he could not eat anything without being in the dungeon. There he ordered, sparing no effort, to beat with a whip, fry, heave. But then he could eat and drink for three."
According to Fabricius, as a result of Odoevsky's service zeal, "only old women and small children remained in the city."
If you believe the Dutchman (and there is no reason to believe him in this case), it should be admitted that Astrakhan was completely ruined not by an external enemy and not by the rebels, but by a government official, and not in the process of suppressing the uprising, but several months after its completion. And this voivode was far from the only sadist and bloody maniac who surpassed in their cruelty even the atamans Stepan Razin, who were not particularly scrupulous. Elsewhere, the level of brutality of the new bosses also went off scale.
The revenge of the authorities was truly terrible: in three months the tsar's punishers executed more than 11 thousand people. Others were beaten with whips, and thousands of people had their tongues cut out or their hands cut off.
Johann Justus Marcius, who defended his dissertation on the uprising of Stepan Razin in 1674 in Wittenberg, wrote:
"And indeed, the massacre was terrifying, and those who fell into the hands of the victors alive were expected to be punished for treason by the most severe torments: some were nailed to the cross, others were impaled, many were hooked by the ribs."
The appointment of Odoevsky and people like him as governors of the conquered regions, on the one hand, testifies to Alexei Mikhailovich's fear of a new outburst of popular anger, on the other hand, it confirms the well-known thesis about his lack of talent as a statesman: the tsar easily succumbed to external influences and could not calculate the long-term consequences decisions made. The fire of the Razin rebellion was literally drenched in blood, but the memory of the atrocities of the tsarist boyars and landowners who avenged the fear and humiliation they experienced remained forever among the people. And when, 100 years later, Emelyan Pugachev "commanded" with his "personal decree" the nobles "to catch, execute and hang, and act in the same way as they, having no Christianity in themselves, repaired with you peasants," a new civil war, according to in the words of Pushkin, "she shook Russia from Siberia to Moscow and from the Kuban to the Murom forests":
“All black people were for Pugachev. The clergy welcomed him, not only priests and monks, but also archimandrites and bishops. One nobility was openly on the side of the government … The class of clerks and officials was still small in number and resolutely belonged to the common people. The same can be said about the officers who curry favor with the soldiers. Many of these last ones were in Pugachev's gangs."
(A. S. Pushkin, "Remarks on the revolt.")
But back to Astrakhan: the deceived townspeople tried to flee the city then. Some made their way to Slobozhanshchina, others to the Urals or even Siberia. Some of them went to the north - to the Old Believer Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky Monastery: its abbot Nikanor received everyone.
Here they died on January 22, 1676, after the monk Theoktist showed a secret passage to the tsarist troops who were besieging the monastery. The massacre of the defenders of the monastery and its monks shocked even not sentimental foreign mercenaries, some of whom left memories of this amazing one, which lasted from 1668 to 1676. a war of an entire state against one monastery.
Death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich
And Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was dying at that time - painfully and terribly: "We were relaxed before death, and before that judgment was condemned, and before endless torment we torment."
It seemed to the Tsar, who staged cruel large-scale persecutions of compatriots who remained faithful to the previous rituals, that the Solovetsky monks were rubbing his body with saws and he was scared, shouted to the whole palace, begging them:
“My Lord, Fathers of Solovetsky, elders! Give birth to me, but I repent of my theft, as if I did wrong, rejected the Christian faith, playing, crucified Christ … and bowed down to your Solovetsky monastery under the sword."
He even sent an order to end the siege of the Solovetsky Monastery, but the messenger was late for a week.
Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov died on January 29 (February 8), 1676, but the unrest of the peasants did not subside after his death, flaring up in different parts of the state. Their last foci were eliminated only in the 1680s.
