Since 1769, Russia has been waging a difficult but very successful war with Turkey for the possession of the Black Sea region. However, in Russia itself it was very restless, at this time a rebellion began, which went down in history as the "Pugachev revolt". Many circumstances paved the way for such a riot, namely:
1. Increased discontent of the Volga peoples with national and religious oppression, as well as the arbitrariness of the tsarist authorities. All sorts of obstacles were put up for the traditional folk religion and in the activities of imams, mullahs, mosques and madrassas, and part of the indigenous population was imprudently subjected to violent Christianization. In the South Urals, on lands bought for a pittance from the Bashkirs, entrepreneurs built metallurgical plants, hired Bashkirs for support work for a pittance. Salt fields, river and lake banks, forest dachas and pastures were taken away from the indigenous population. Huge tracts of impenetrable forest were predatory cut down or burned to produce coal.
2. In the second half of the 18th century, the serf oppression of the peasants intensified. After the death of Tsar Peter, a long period of "woman's rule" began in Russia, and the empresses distributed hundreds of thousands of state peasants to the landowners, including their numerous favorites. As a result, every second peasant in Great Russia became a serf. In an effort to increase the profitability of estates, landowners increased the size of the corvee, their rights became unlimited. They could screw a person to death, buy, sell, exchange, send to the soldiers. In addition, a powerful moral factor of class injustice was superimposed on life. The fact is that on February 18, 1762, Emperor Peter III adopted a decree on the freedom of the nobility, which granted the ruling class the right to either serve the state, or resign and leave for their estates. Since ancient times, the people, in its different classes, had a firm conviction that each class, to the best of its strength and abilities, serves the state in the name of its prosperity and the national good. Boyars and nobles serve in the army and institutions, peasants work on the land, in their estates and in noble estates, workers and artisans - in workshops, in factories, Cossacks - on the border. And here the whole class was given the right to sit back, lie back on sofas for years, get drunk, debauchery and eat free bread. This inactivity, uselessness, idleness and depraved life of the rich noblemen especially irritated and oppressed the working peasantry. The matter was aggravated by the fact that the retired nobles began to spend most of their lives on their estates. Previously, they spent most of their life and time in the service, and the estates were actually managed by the elders from their own local peasants. The nobles retired after 25 years of service, in their mature years, often sick and wounded, wiser by many years of service, knowledge and life experience. Now young and healthy people of both sexes literally languished and toiled from idleness, inventing new, often depraved, entertainments for themselves, which demanded more and more money. In outbursts of unbridled greed, many landowners took the land from the peasants, forcing them to work in corvee all week. The peasants instinctively and intellectually understood that the ruling circles, freeing themselves from service and labor, were increasingly tightening the bondage of serfs and oppressing the laboring, but disenfranchised peasantry. Therefore, they tried to restore a just, in their opinion, past way of life, to make the presumptuous nobles serve the Fatherland.
3. There was also a great dissatisfaction of the mining workers with hard, hard labor and poor living conditions. Serfs were attributed to state factories. Their labor at the factory was counted as corvee work. These peasants had to receive funds for food from their subsidiary plots. The appointees were forced to work in factories up to 260 days a year, they had little time left to work in their farmsteads. Their farms became poorer and impoverished, and people lived in extreme poverty. In the 1940s, the "merchant" owners were also allowed to "export all ranks of people" to the Ural factories. Only the breeder Tverdyshev by the 60s of the 18th century acquired over 6 thousand peasants for his factories.
Serf breeders forced slaves to work out a "lesson" not only for themselves, but also for the dead, sick, fugitive peasants, for the elderly and children. In a word, labor obligations increased many times over and people could not get out of life-long, heavy bondage. Along with the registered and serfs, workers, artisans and fugitive ("descendants") people worked in the shops. For each fugitive soul hired, the owner paid 50 rubles to the treasury and owned it for life.
4. The Cossacks were also dissatisfied. Since ancient times, the Yaik Cossacks have been famous for their love of freedom, steadfastness in the old faith and in the traditions bequeathed by their ancestors. After the defeat of the Bulavin uprising, Peter I tried to limit the Cossack liberties on the Yaik, disperse the Old Believers and shave the beards of the Cossacks, and received a corresponding protest and opposition that lasted several decades, survived the emperor himself, and later gave rise to powerful uprisings. Since 1717, the Yaik atamans ceased to be elected, and began to be appointed and in St. Petersburg there were continuous complaints and denunciations of the atamans appointed by the tsar. Verification commissions were appointed from St. Petersburg, which partly extinguished discontent with varying success, and partly, due to the corruption of the commissars themselves, exacerbated it. The confrontation between the state authorities and the Yaitsk army in 1717-1760 developed into a protracted conflict, during which the Yaik Cossacks dissociated themselves into "agreeable" chieftains and foremen and "dissenting" simple military Cossacks. The following case overflowed the cup of patience. Since 1752, the Yaik army, after a long struggle with the merchant clan of the Gurievs, took over the rich fisheries in the lower reaches of the Yaik. Ataman Borodin and the foremen used a profitable trade for their own enrichment. The Cossacks wrote complaints, but they were not given a go. In 1763, the Cossacks sent a complaint with the walkers. Ataman Borodin was dismissed from his post, but the walker - the military sergeant major Loginov was accused of slander and exiled to Tobolsk, and 40 Cossack signatories were punished with whips and expelled from Yaitsky town. But this did not humble the Cossacks, and they sent a new delegation to St. Petersburg, headed by the centurion Portnov. The delegates were arrested and sent under escort to Yaik. A new commission headed by General von Traubenberg also arrived there. This foreigner and bourbon began his activity by whipping seven elected respected Cossacks, shaving their beards and sending them under escort to Orenburg. This greatly angered the freedom-loving villagers. On January 12, the authoritative Cossacks Perfilyev and Shagaev gathered the Circle and a huge mass of Cossacks went to the house where the cruel general was located. Elders, women and a priest walked ahead with icons, they carried a petition, sang psalms and wanted to peacefully achieve a solution to controversial but important issues. But they were met by soldiers with guns and gunners with cannons. When the Cossack mass reached the square in front of the Voiskovaya hut, Baron von Traubenberg ordered to open fire from cannons and rifles. As a result of dagger fire, more than 100 people died, some of them fled, but most of the Cossacks, disdaining death, rushed to the cannons and killed and strangled the gunners with their bare hands. The guns were deployed and point-blank shot at the punitive soldiers. General Traubenberg was chopped up with swords, Captain Durnovo was beaten, the chieftain and foremen were hanged. A new chieftain, foremen and the Circle were immediately elected. But a detachment of punishers arrived from Orenburg, headed by General Freiman, abolished the new government, and then carried out the decision that had arrived from St. Petersburg in the case of the insurgent Cossacks. All participants were whipped, in addition, 16 Cossacks tore out their nostrils, burned out the “thief” brand on their faces and sent them to hard labor in Siberia, 38 Cossacks with their families were sent to Siberia, 25 were sent to the soldiers. The rest were imposed a huge contribution - 36,765 rubles. But the cruel reprisal did not humble the Yaik Cossacks, they only harbored their anger and anger and waited for the moment for a retaliatory strike.
5. Some historians do not deny the "Crimean-Turkish trace" in the Pugachev events, as indicated by some facts of Pugachev's biography. But Emelyan himself did not recognize the connection with the Turks and Crimeans, even under torture.
All this gave rise to acute discontent with the authorities, prompted to look for a way out in active protest and resistance. Only the instigators and leaders of the movement were needed. The instigators appeared in the person of the Yaik Cossacks, and Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev became the leader of the powerful Cossack-peasant uprising.
Rice. 1. Emelyan Pugachev
Pugachev was born on the Don, in 1742 in the village of Zimoveyskaya, the same one where the rebellious chieftain S. T. Razin. His father came from simple Cossacks. Until the age of 17, Emelya lived in his father's family, doing housework, and after his retirement, he took his place in the regiment. At the age of 19 he married, and soon went with a regiment on a campaign in Poland and Prussia and participated in the Seven Years War. For quickness and liveliness of mind, he was appointed adjutant of the regiment commander I. F. Denisov. In 1768 he went to war with Turkey, for the difference in the capture of the fortress of Bender he received the rank of cornet. But a serious illness makes him leave the army in 1771, the report says: "… and his chest and legs rotted." Pugachev tries to retire due to illness, but is refused. In December 1771, he secretly flees to the Terek. Before the Terek ataman Pavel Tatarnikov, he appears as a voluntary settler and is assigned to the village of Ischorskaya, where he was soon elected as the village ataman. The Cossacks of the villages of Ischorskaya, Naurskaya and Golyugaevskaya decide to send him to St. Petersburg to the Military Collegium with a petition for an increase in salary and provisions. Having received 20 rubles of money and a stanitsa stamp, he leaves for an easy stanitsa (business trip). However, in St. Petersburg he was arrested and put in a guardhouse. But together with the guard soldier, he escapes from custody and comes to his native place. There he was again arrested and escorted to Cherkassk. But with the help of a colleague in the Seven Years War, he again flees and hides in Ukraine. With a group of local residents, he leaves for the Kuban to the Nekrasov Cossacks. In November 1772, he arrived in Yaitsky town and was personally convinced of what tension and anxiety the Yaik Cossacks lived in anticipation of reprisals for the murdered Tsarist punisher General von Traubenberg. In one of the conversations with the owner of the house, the Cossack Old Believer D. I. But upon a denunciation, Pugachev was arrested, beaten with batogs, shackled and sent to Simbirsk, then to Kazan. But he also runs from there and wanders across the Don, the Urals and in other regions. Downright a real Cossack Rambo or ninja. Long wanderings embittered him and taught him a lot. He watched with his own eyes the hard life of an oppressed people, and a thought arose in the violent Cossack head to help the powerless people find the desired freedom and live the whole world like a Cossack, widely, freely and in great abundance. On his next arrival in the Urals, he already appeared before the Cossacks as "Tsar Peter III Fedorovich," and under his name began to publish manifestos promising wide freedoms and material benefits to all who were dissatisfied. Written in an illiterate, but lively, imaginative and accessible language, Pugachev's manifestos were, in the just expression of A. S. Pushkin, "an amazing example of folk eloquence." For many years, the legend about the miraculous salvation of Emperor Peter III and there were dozens of such impostors at that time, but Pugachev turned out to be the most outstanding and successful, walked through the endless expanses of Mother Russia. And the people supported the impostor. Undoubtedly, to his closest associates D. Karavaev, M. Shigaev, I. Zarubin, I. Ushakov, D. Lysov, I. Pochitalin, he admitted that he took the name of the tsar to influence ordinary people, it was easier to raise them to rebellion, and he himself is a simple Cossack. But the Yaik Cossacks badly needed an authoritative and skillful leader, under whose banner and leadership they would rise to fight the selfish and willful boyars, officials and cruel generals. In fact, not many people believed that Pugachev was Peter III, but many followed him, such was the thirst for rebellion. On September 17, 1773 about 60 Cossacks arrived at the farm of the Tolkachev brothers, located 100 versts from Yaitsky town. Pugachev addressed them with a fiery speech and a "royal manifesto" written by Ivan Pochitalin. With this small detachment, Pugachev went towards the Yaitsky town. On the way, dozens of people of the common people pestered him: Russians and Tatars, Kalmyks and Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. The detachment reached the number of 200 people and approached the Yaitsky town. The leader of the insurgents sent a formidable decree on voluntary surrender to the capital of the troops, but was refused. Not having seized the town by assault, the rebels went up the Yaik, took the Gnilovsky outpost and called the Cossack Army Circle. Andrey Ovchinnikov was elected as the military ataman, Dmitry Lysov as colonel, Andrey Vitoshnov's chieftain, and here they chose the centurions and cornet. Moving up the Yaik, the rebels occupied the outposts of Genvartsovsky, Rubezhny, Kirsanovsky, Irteksky without a fight. Iletsk town tried to resist, but ataman Ovchinnikov appeared there with a manifesto and a garrison of 300 people with 12 cannons stopped resistance and met "Tsar Peter" with bread and salt. Dissatisfied crowds joined the insurgents, and, as Pushkin would later say, "a Russian revolt began, senseless and merciless."
Rice. 2. Surrender of the fortress to Pugachev
Orenburg governor Reinsdorp ordered Brigadier Bilov with a detachment of 400 men with 6 cannons to move towards the rebels to the rescue of Yaitsky town. However, a large detachment of rebels approached the Rassypnaya fortress and on September 24, the garrison surrendered without a fight. On September 27, the Pugachevites approached the Tatishchev Fortress. A large fortification on the way to Orenburg had a garrison of up to 1000 soldiers with 13 guns. In addition, a detachment of Brigadier Bilov was in the fortress. The besieged repulsed the first attack. As part of Bilov's detachment, 150 Orenburg Cossacks of centurion Timofei Padurov fought, who were sent to intercept the rebels moving around the fortress. To the surprise of the Tatishchevskaya garrison, the detachment of T. Padurov openly went over to the side of Pugachev. This undermined the strength of the defenders. The rebels set fire to the wooden walls, rushed to the attack and broke into the fortress. The soldiers hardly resisted, the Cossacks went over to the side of the impostor. The officers were brutally dealt with: Bilov's head was cut off, the skin of the commandant Colonel Yelagin was flayed, the body of the obese officer was used to treat wounds, the fat was cut off and the wounds were smeared. Elagin's wife was hacked to pieces, his beautiful daughter Pugachev took him as a concubine, and later, having amused himself following the example of Stenka Razin, he killed along with his seven-year-old brother.
Unlike all other Orenburg Cossacks, near the Tatishchevskaya fortress there was almost the only case of a voluntary transition of 150 Orenburg Cossacks to the side of the rebels. What made the centurion T. Padurov change his oath, surrender to the thieves' Cossacks, serve the impostor and ultimately end his life on the gallows? Sotnik Timofey Padurov comes from a wealthy Cossack family. He had a large allotment of land and a farm in the upper reaches of the Sakmara River. In 1766 he was elected to the Commission for the preparation of a new Code (code of laws) and for several years he lived in St. Petersburg and moved in court circles. After the dissolution of the commission, he was appointed ataman of the Iset Cossacks. In this position, he did not get along with the commandant of the Chelyabinsk fortress, Lieutenant Colonel Lazarev, and, starting in 1770, they bombarded Governor Reinsdorp with mutual denunciations and complaints. Failing to achieve the truth, the centurion left Chelyaba for Orenburg in the spring of 1772 for linear service, where he stayed with the detachment until September 1773. At the most crucial moment of the battle for the Tatishchevskaya fortress, he and a detachment went over to the side of the rebels, thereby helping to take the fortress and deal with its defenders. Apparently, Padurov did not forget his previous grievances, he disgusted the foreign German queen, her favorites and the magnificent surroundings that he observed in St. Petersburg. He truly believed in the high mission of Pugachev, with his help he wanted to overthrow the hated queen. Note that the tsarist aspirations of the Cossacks, their attempts to put their own, the Cossack tsar on the throne, were repeatedly repeated in Russian history of the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, since the end of the reign of the Rurik dynasty and the beginning of the accession of the new clan of the Romanovs, "tsars and tsarevichs", contenders for the Moscow crown, were constantly nominated from the Cossack environment. Emelyan himself played the role of the king well, forcing all his associates, as well as the captured imperial officers and nobles, to play along with him, swear allegiance, kiss his hand.
Those who disagree were immediately brutally punished - executed, hanged, tortured. These facts confirm the version of historians about the stubborn struggle of the Cossacks for their Cossack-Russian-Horde dynasty. The arrival of the intelligent, active and authoritative Cossack T. Padurov to the Pugachev camp turned out to be a great success. After all, this centurion knew court life well, he could tell ordinary people about the life and customs of the queen in living colors, debunk her depraved, lustful and thieving environment, give visible truthfulness and real colors to all the legends and versions about the royal origin of Pugachev. Pugachev highly appreciated Padurov, promoted him to colonel, appointed him to the "imperial person" and to act as Secretary of State. Together with the former corporal Beloborodov and the cornet of the Etkul stanitsa Shundeev, he carried out staff work and drew up "royal manifestos and decrees." But not only. With a small detachment of Cossacks, he rode out to meet the punitive detachment of Colonel Chernyshov, lost in the steppe. Having shown him his Golden Deputy Badge, he gained confidence in the colonel and led his detachment to the very center of the rebel camp. The surrounded soldiers and Cossacks threw their guns and surrendered, 30 officers were hanged. A large detachment of Major General V. A. Kara, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief, had over 1,500 soldiers in total with 5 guns. The detachment had a hundred mounted Bashkirs of the batyr Salavat Yulaev. The Pugachevites surrounded a detachment of government troops near the village of Yuzeevka. At the decisive moment of the battle, the Bashkirs went over to the side of the rebels, which decided the outcome of the battle. Some of the soldiers joined the ranks of the rebels, some were killed. Pugachev granted Yulaev the rank of colonel, from that moment the Bashkirs took an active part in the uprising. To attract them, Pugachev threw populist slogans into the national masses: about the expulsion of Russians from Bashkiria, about the destruction of all fortresses and factories, about the transfer of all lands into the hands of the Bashkir people. These were false promises cut off from life, for it is impossible to reverse the movement of progress, but they fell in love with the indigenous population. The approach of new Cossack, Bashkir and workers' detachments near Orenburg strengthened Pugachev's army. During the six-month siege of Orenburg, the leaders of the uprising paid special attention to the training of troops. As an experienced combat officer, the tireless leader trained his militia in military affairs. Pugachev's army, like the regular one, was divided into regiments, companies and hundreds. Three types of troops were formed: infantry, artillery and cavalry. True, only the Cossacks had good weapons, common people, Bashkirs and peasants were armed with anything. Near Orenburg, the insurgent army grew to 30 thousand people with 100 cannons and 600 gunners. At the same time, Pugachev repaired the trial and reprisals against the prisoners and shed rivers of blood.
Rice. 3. Pugachev's court
But all attacks on the capture of Orenburg were repulsed with heavy losses for the besiegers. Orenburg at that time was a first-class fortress with 10 bastions. In the ranks of the defenders there were 3,000 well-trained soldiers and Cossacks of the Separate Orenburg Corps, 70 cannons fired from the walls. The defeated General Kar fled to Moscow and caused great panic there. Anxiety gripped St. Petersburg as well. Catherine demanded the earliest possible conclusion of peace with the Turks, appointed the energetic and talented General A. I. Bibikov, and for the head of Pugachev instituted a reward of 10 thousand rubles. But the far-sighted and intelligent General Bibikov said to the tsarina: "It is not Pugachev that is important, the general indignation is important …". At the end of 1773, the rebels approached Ufa, but all attempts to take the impregnable fortress were successfully repulsed. Colonel Ivan Gryaznov was sent to the Isetskaya province to capture Chelyabinsk. On the way, he captured fortresses, outposts and villages, the Cossacks and soldiers of the Sterlitamak pier, the Tabynsky town, the Epiphany plant, the villages of Kundravinskaya, Koelskaya, Verkhneuvelskaya, Chebarkulskaya and other settlements joined him. The detachment of the Pugachev colonel grew to 6 thousand people. The rebels moved to the Chelyabinsk fortress. The governor of the Isetskaya province A. P. Verevkin took decisive measures to strengthen the fortress. In December 1773, he ordered 1300 "temporary Cossacks" to be gathered in the district, and the garrison of Chelyaba grew to 2000 people with 18 guns. But many of its defenders sympathized with the rebels, and on January 5, 1774, an uprising broke out in the fortress. It was headed by the ataman of the Chelyabinsk Cossacks Ivan Urzhumtsev and the cornet Naum Nevzorov. The Cossacks, under the leadership of Nevzorov, seized the cannons that were standing near the provincial house, and opened fire from them on the soldiers of the garrison. The Cossacks broke into the governor's house and inflicted a cruel reprisal on him, beating him half to death. But carried away by the reprisal against the hated officers, the rebels left the guns unattended. Second lieutenant Pushkarev with the Tobolsk company and the gunners fought them off and opened fire on the rebels. In the battle, the ataman Urzhumtsev was killed, and Nevzorov with the Cossacks left the city. On January 8, Ivan Gryaznov approached the fortress with troops and stormed it twice, but the garrison bravely and skillfully held the defense. The attackers suffered heavy losses from the fortress artillery. Reinforcements from Seconds-Major Fadeev and part of the Siberian Corps of General Decolong broke through to the besieged. Gryaznov lifted the siege and went to Chebarkul, but having received reinforcements, he again occupied the village of Pershino near Chelyabinsk. On February 1, in the Pershino area, a battle between the Decolong detachment and the rebels took place. Unable to achieve success, the government troops retreated to the fortress, and on February 8 they left it and retreated to Shadrinsk. The uprising spread, a vast territory was engulfed in an all-consuming fire of fratricidal war. But many fortresses stubbornly refused to surrender. The garrison of the Yaitsk fortress, not agreeing to any promises from the Pugachevites, continued to resist. The rebel commanders decided: if the fortress is taken, not only the officers, but also their families will be hanged. The places where this or that person will hang were outlined. The wife and five-year-old son of Captain Krylov, the future fabulist Ivan Krylov, appeared there. As in any civil war, the mutual hatred was so great that on both sides, everyone who could bear arms took part in the battles. The opposing troops included not only fellow countrymen-neighbors, but also close relatives. Father went to son, brother to brother. Old residents of Yaitsky town recounted a typical scene. From the rampart of the fortress, the younger brother was shouting to his elder brother, who was approaching him with a crowd of rebels: "Dear brother, don't come near! I will kill you." And the brother from the stairs answered him: "I will give you, I will kill you! Wait, I will climb on the shaft, I will kick your forelock, henceforth you will not frighten your older brother." And the younger brother fired at him from the squeak and the older brother rolled into the ditch. The surname of the brothers, the Gorbunovs, has also been preserved. A terrible confusion reigned in the rebellious territory. Gangs of robbers-rams became more active. On a large scale, they practiced the hijacking of people from the border zone into captivity to nomads. By all means trying to extinguish the Pugachev uprising, the commanders of the government troops were often forced to get involved in battles with these predators along with the rebels. The commander of one of such detachments, Lieutenant G. R. Derzhavin, the future poet, having learned that a gang of nomads was rampaging nearby, raised up to six hundred peasants, many of whom sympathized with Pugachev, and with them and a team of 25 hussars attacked a large detachment of Kyrgyz-Kaisaks and freed up to eight hundred Russian prisoners. However, the freed captives announced to the lieutenant that they also sympathize with Pugachev.
The protracted siege of Orenburg and Yaitsky town allowed the tsarist governors to pull up large forces of the regular army and noble militias of Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Sviyazhsk to the city. On March 22, the rebels were severely defeated by government forces at the Tatishchevskaya fortress. The defeat had a depressing effect on many of them. Horunzhy Borodin tried to capture Pugachev and hand him over to the authorities, but unsuccessfully. Pugachev's Colonel Mussa Aliyev captured and betrayed the prominent rebel to Khlopusha. On April 1, when leaving the Sakmarsky town to the Yaitsky town, the many thousands of Pugachev's army was attacked and defeated by the troops of General Golitsyn. Prominent leaders were captured: Timofey Myasnikov, Timofey Padurov, clerks Maxim Gorshkov and Andrey Tolkachev, Duma clerk Ivan Pochitalin, chief judge Andrey Vitoshnov, treasurer Maxim Shigaev. Simultaneously with the defeat of the main forces of the rebels near Orenburg, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhelson with his hussars and carabinieri carried out a complete defeat of the rebels near Ufa. In April 1774, the Commander-in-Chief of the tsarist troops, General Bibikov, was poisoned in Bugulma by a captive Polish confederate. The new Commander-in-Chief, Prince F. F. Shcherbatov concentrated large military forces and tried to attract the indigenous population to fight the rebels. The rebels suffered more and more defeats from the regular army.
After these defeats, Pugachev decided to move to Bashkiria and from that moment began the most successful period of his war with the tsarist government. One by one, he occupied the factories, replenishing his army with workers, weapons and ammunition. After the assault and destruction of the Magnitnaya fortress (now Magnitogorsk), he gathered a meeting of Bashkir elders there, promised to return them lands and lands, destroy the fortifications of the Orenburg line, mines and factories, and expel all Russians. Seeing the destroyed fortress and the surrounding mines, the Bashkir elders met with great joy the promises and promises of the "hope-sovereign" began to help him with bread and salt, fodder and provisions, people and horses. Pugachev gathered up to 11 thousand rebel fighters, with whom he moved along the Orenburg line, occupied, destroyed and burned fortresses. On May 20, they stormed the most powerful Trinity Fortress. But on May 21, the troops of the Siberian corps of General Decolong appeared in front of the fortress. The rebels attacked them with all their might, but could not withstand the powerful onslaught of the brave and loyal soldiers, wavered and fled, losing up to 4 thousand killed, 9 guns and the entire baggage train.
Rice. 4. The battle at the Trinity Fortress
With the remnants of the army, Pugachev plundered the Nizhneuvelskoye, Kichiginskoye and Koelskoye fortifications, through Varlamovo and Kundrava went to the Zlatoust plant. However, near the Kundravs, the rebels had a counter battle with a detachment of I. I. Michelson and suffered a new defeat. The Pugachevites broke away from Mikhelson's detachment, which also suffered heavy losses and abandoned pursuit, plundered the Miass, Zlatoust and Satka factories and united with S. Yulaev's detachment. A young poet-horseman with a detachment of about 3,000 people actively worked in the mining and industrial zone of the South Urals. He managed to capture several mining plants, Simsky, Yuryuzansky, Ust-Katavsky and others, destroyed and burned them. In total, during the uprising, 69 plants in the Urals were partially and completely destroyed, 43 plants did not participate in the insurrectionary movement at all, the rest created self-defense units and defended their enterprises, or bought off the insurgents. Therefore, in the 70s of the 18th century, industrial production throughout the Urals declined sharply. In June 1774, the detachments of Pugachev and S. Yulaev united and laid siege to the Osa fortress. After a hard battle, the fortress surrendered, and the road to Kazan was opened for Pugachev, his army was quickly replenished with volunteers. With 20 thousand rebels, he attacked the city from four sides. On July 12, the rebels broke into the city, but the Kremlin held out. The tireless, energetic and skillful Michelson approached the city and a field battle unfolded near the city. The defeated Pugachevites, numbering about 400 people, crossed over to the right bank of the Volga.
Rice. 5. Pugachev's court in Kazan
With the arrival of Pugachev in the Volga region, the third and last stage of his struggle began. Huge masses of peasants and peoples of the Volga region stirred up and rose to fight for imaginary and real freedom. The peasants, having received Pugachev's manifesto, killed the landlords, hanged the clerks, burned the manor estates. The Pugachevsky detachment turned south, to the Don. The Volga cities surrendered to Pugachev without a fight, Alatyr, Saransk, Penza, Petrovsk, Saratov fell … The offensive went on rapidly. They took cities and villages, repaired the court and reprisals against the gentlemen, freed the convicts, confiscated the property of the nobles, distributed bread to the hungry, took away weapons and ammunition, made up volunteers for the Cossacks and left, leaving behind flames and ashes. On August 21, 1774, the rebels approached Tsaritsyn, the indefatigable Mikhelson followed on his heels. The assault on the fortified city failed. On August 24, Mikhelson overtook Pugachev at the Black Yar. The battle ended in complete defeat, 2 thousand rebels were killed, 6 thousand were taken prisoner. With a detachment of two hundred rebels, the leader rode off to the Trans-Volga steppes. But the days of the rebellious chieftain were numbered. The active and talented General Pyotr Panin was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops operating against the rebels, and in the southern sector all forces were subordinated to A. V. Suvorov. And what is very important, Don did not support Pugachev. This circumstance should be specially mentioned. The Don was ruled by a Council of Elders of 15-20 people and a chieftain. The circle met annually on January 1 and held elections for all elders, except for the chieftain. Tsar Peter I introduced the appointment of chieftains (most often for life) in 1718. This strengthened the central power in the Cossack regions, but at the same time led to the abuse of this power. Under Anna Ioannovna, the glorious Cossack Danila Efremov was appointed the Don chieftain, after a while he was appointed a military chieftain for life. But the power spoiled him, and under him the uncontrolled domination of power and money began. In 1755, for many merits of the ataman, he was awarded a major general, and in 1759, for merits in the Seven Years' War, he was also a privy councilor with the presence of the empress, and his son Stepan Efremov was appointed as the chief ataman on the Don. Thus, by the highest order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the power on the Don was transformed into hereditary and uncontrolled. From that time on, the ataman family crossed all moral boundaries in money-grubbing, and in revenge an avalanche of complaints fell upon them. Since 1764, on complaints from the Cossacks, Catherine demanded from Ataman Efremov a report on income, land and other possessions, his crafts and foremen. The report did not satisfy her and, on her instructions, a commission on the economic situation on the Don worked. But the commission did not work shakily, not shakily. In 1766, land surveying was carried out and the illegally occupied yurts were taken away. In 1772, the commission finally gave an opinion on the abuses of the ataman Stepan Efremov, he was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. This matter, on the eve of the Pugachev revolt, took a political turn, especially since the ataman Stepan Efremov had personal services to the empress. In 1762, being at the head of the light village (delegation) in St. Petersburg, he took part in the coup that elevated Catherine to the throne and was awarded for this with a personalized weapon. The arrest and investigation in the case of Ataman Efremov defused the situation on the Don and the Don Cossacks were practically not involved in the Pugachev revolt. Moreover, the Don regiments took an active part in suppressing the rebellion, capturing Pugachev and pacifying the rebellious regions over the next few years. If the empress had not condemned the thieving ataman, Pugachev, no doubt, would have found support in the Don and the scope of the Pugachev rebellion would have been completely different.
The hopelessness of the further continuation of the rebellion was also understood by prominent associates of Pugachev. His comrades-in-arms - the Cossacks Tvorogov, Chumakov, Zheleznov, Feduliev and Burnov on September 12 seized and tied Pugachev. On September 15, he was taken to Yaitsky town, at the same time Lieutenant-General A. V. Suvorov. The future generalissimo, during interrogation, marveled at the sound reasoning and military talents of the "villain". In a special cell, under a large escort, Suvorov himself escorted the robber to Moscow.
Rice. 6 Pugachev in a cage
On January 9, 1775, the court sentenced Pugachev to quartering, the empress replaced him with execution by beheading. On January 10, on Bolotnaya Square, Pugachev ascended the scaffold, bowed to four sides, quietly said: "Forgive me, Orthodox people" and laid his troubled head on the block, which the ax instantly cut off. Here, four of his closest associates were executed by hanging: Perfiliev, Shigaev, Padurov and Tornov.
Rice. 7 Execution of Pugachev
And yet the uprising was not meaningless, as the great poet said. The ruling circles were able to convince themselves of the strength and fury of the people's anger and made serious concessions and indulgences. The breeders were instructed to "double the payments for the work and not force the work in excess of the established norms." Religious persecutions were stopped in the ethnic regions, they were allowed to build mosques and taxes were stopped from them. But the vindictive Empress Catherine II, noting the loyalty of the Orenburg Cossacks, was indignant at the Yaiks. The empress wanted to abolish the Yaik army altogether, but then, at Potemkin's request, forgave it. To consign the rebellion to complete oblivion, the army was renamed into the Ural, the Yaik River into the Ural, the Yaitskaya fortress into Uralsk, etc. Catherine II abolished the military circle and elective administration. The choice of chieftains and foremen finally passed to the government. All the guns were taken away from the troops and forbidden to have them in the future. The ban was lifted only 140 years later with the outbreak of World War II. However, the Yaitsky army was still lucky. The Volga Cossacks, also involved in the riot, were moved to the North Caucasus, and the Zaporozhye Sich was completely eliminated. After the riot for at least ten years, the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks were armed only with melee weapons, squeaked and received ammunition only when there was a threat of a clash. The victors' revenge was no less terrible than the bloody exploits of the Pugachevites. In the Volga region and in the Urals, punitive detachments raged. Thousands of rebels: Cossacks, peasants, Russians, Bashkirs, Tatars, Chuvash were executed without any trial, sometimes just at the whim of the punishers. In Pushkin's papers on the history of the Pugachev rebellion, there is a note that Lieutenant Derzhavin ordered the hanging of two rebels "out of poetic curiosity." At the same time, the Cossacks who remained loyal to the empress were generously rewarded.
Thus, in the 17th-18th centuries, the type of the Cossack was finally formed - a universal warrior, equally capable of participating in sea and river raids, fighting on land both on horseback and on foot, perfectly knowledgeable in artillery, fortification, siege, mine and subversion. … But the main type of hostilities used to be sea and river raids. The Cossacks became predominantly horsemen later under Peter I, after the ban on going to sea in 1695. In essence, the Cossacks are a caste of warriors, Kshatriyas (in India - a caste of warriors and kings), who defended the Orthodox faith and the Russian land for many centuries. Through the exploits of the Cossacks, Russia became a powerful empire: Ermak presented Ivan the Terrible with the Siberian Khanate. Siberian and Far Eastern lands along the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur rivers, also Chukotka, Kamchatka, Central Asia, the Caucasus were annexed largely thanks to the military valor of the Cossacks. Ukraine was reunited with Russia by the Cossack ataman (hetman) Bohdan Khmelnitsky. But the Cossacks often opposed the central government (their role in the Russian Troubles, in the uprisings of Razin, Bulavin and Pugachev is remarkable). Many and stubbornly Dnieper Cossacks rebelled in the Commonwealth. To a large extent, this was due to the fact that the ancestors of the Cossacks were ideologically brought up in the Horde on the laws of the Yasa of Genghis Khan, according to which only Chingizid could be a real king, i.e. descendant of Genghis Khan. All other rulers, including Rurikovich, Gediminovich, Piast, Jagiellon, Romanov and others, were not legitimate enough in their eyes, were “not real kings”, and the Cossacks were morally and physically allowed to participate in their overthrow, riots and other anti-government activities. And in the process of the collapse of the Horde, when in the course of strife and the struggle for power, hundreds of Chingizids were destroyed, including Cossack sabers, the Chingizids also lost their Cossack piety. One should not discount the simple desire to "show off", take advantage of the weakness of the authorities and take legitimate and rich trophies during the troubles. The papal ambassador to Sich, Father Pearling, who worked hard and successfully to direct the warlike fervor of the Cossacks to the lands of the heretics Muscovites and Ottomans, wrote about this in his memoirs: “The Cossacks wrote their history with a saber, and not on the pages of ancient books, but on this feather left its bloody trail on the battlefield. It was customary for the Cossacks to deliver thrones to all sorts of applicants. In Moldova and Wallachia, they periodically resorted to their help. For the formidable freemen of the Dnieper and Don, it was completely indifferent whether the real or imaginary rights belonged to the hero of the minute. For them, one thing was important - that they had good prey. Was it possible to compare the pitiful Danubian principalities with the boundless plains of the Russian land, full of fabulous riches?"
However, from the end of the 18th century until the October Revolution, the Cossacks unconditionally and diligently performed the role of defenders of Russian statehood and the support of the tsarist power, having even received the nickname "tsarist satraps" from the revolutionaries. By some miracle, the alien queen-German woman and her outstanding nobles, with a combination of reasonable reforms and punitive actions, managed to drive into the violent Cossack head the persistent idea that Catherine II and her descendants are "real" tsars, and Russia is a real empire,in places "abruptly" the Horde. This metamorphosis in the consciousness of the Cossacks, which took place at the end of the 18th century, has in fact been little studied and studied by Cossack historians and writers. But there is an indisputable fact: from the end of the 18th century to the October Revolution, the Cossack riots vanished as if by hand, and the bloodiest, longest and most famous riot in the history of Russia - the "Cossack revolt", was drowned.
