Wars, increased taxes, financial adventures of the authorities during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich shattered the country's economy. The burdensome ones "grew thin", went bankrupt and fled. The scale of the flight of the peasants, especially the landlords, was such that the authorities organized a massive search for the fugitives. In the years 1663-1667. in one Ryazan district they managed to find and return 8 thousand peasants and slaves. And how many were not found? How many fugitives took refuge in the Ukraine, on the Volga, in the Urals, in Siberia? How many did Don receive? There was still no extradition from Don. The "old" "homely" Cossacks lived there in a very comfortable way. They managed the economy, trade, received from the tsar a salary, lead and gunpowder for the service of guarding the borderlands. But, in addition, a lot of "young" "golutvenny" Cossacks - "dull people" lived here. Golutvenny Cossacks earned extra money from the householders, but mostly they lived by robbery. They were constantly ready to go to catch their luck in the Crimean, Turkish, Persian, Polish borders, and did not disdain to rob Orthodox merchants.
One ataman (of the homely Cossacks) Vasily Us bravely fought with the Ylyakhs in the Ukraine and Belarus and, upon his return to the Don, gained popularity among the Golutven Cossacks. In 1666 there was a famine on the Don. First of all, the "young" Cossacks, who did not have their own economy, suffered. Vasily Us gathered a gang of golutven Cossacks and moved to Sloboda Ukraine, then to the southern districts of Russia, and then to Moscow. His detachment consisted mainly of "young Cossacks". The Cossacks said that they were going to the tsar with a request to enroll them in the tsar's service and to give them a salary, above all bread. However, the Donets did not act as supplicants. On the way, they smashed estates and wealthy houses. The peasants joined Usu in droves. On the river Upe, 8 km from Tula, the rebels built a prison. Tsar Alexei sent regiments against the rebels, and then, without waiting for the battle, the Cossacks and many local peasants and slaves who had nailed to them left for the Don.
"I HAVE COME TO BEAT ONLY THE BOYAR YES RICH LORD"
Part of the archers went with the chieftain. On 35 large plows, the Cossacks passed Astrakhan, passed the Caspian Sea and appeared at the mouth of the Yaik (Ural River). The Cossacks captured the fortified town of Yaitsk, where they spent the winter trading captured goods with the local population and preparing for new raids.
The capital received false information; as if "thieves' Cossacks" are sitting in Yaitsky town, besieged by the steppe inhabitants. Therefore, a small detachment of archers of 3 thousand people was sent against Razin. Meanwhile, Cossacks and fugitive people flocked to Razin from all sides, where the fame of his luck and exploits reached. The royal detachment was defeated, part of it joined the ranks of the rebels.
"AND SHEARS ABOUT HER ..."
Russia at that time had good relations with Persia, but at the end of the 17th century. the situation changed, which was largely facilitated by Razin's raid on the Azerbaijani principalities and Persia. In the spring of 1668 Stepan Razin with several hundred Cossacks loaded gunpowder, lead, cannonballs and light cannons onto plows. The heavy guns of the Yaitsky town were flooded. Cossack boats left for the Caspian Sea. At the mouth of the Terek, a detachment of Golutven Cossacks, led by Sergei Khrom (Krivoy), joined Razin. After that, Stepan turned out to be 2 thousand (according to some sources - 6 thousand) people. How did the campaign unfold further? In Moscow, from the words of an Astrakhan who came from Shemakha, they knew: “The thieves' Cossacks of Stenka Razin were in the shah's region, in Nizova, and in Baku, and in Gilan. Yasyr (prisoners) and belly (prey) were caught a lot. And de Cossacks live on the Kura River and travel apart by sea for prey, and they say that, de, them, Cossacks, there are many planes. " Soon the ataman Razin appeared off the southern coast of the Caspian. The Persian Shah sent a fleet of 70 ships against the robbers, but the Cossacks defeated it. The Shah complained about the Cossack robberies to Moscow, but there they answered that Razin's Cossacks were "thieves" and the Tsar of Moscow did not send them to Persia. Razin's campaign was captured not only by the Persian chronicles, but also by Iranian folklore. The chieftain in Iranian fairy tales looks no better than the "filthy serpent Tugarinovich" in ours.
In the fall of 1669 Razin reappeared near Astrakhan. Knowing about the "great power" of the chieftain, the Astrakhan governor did not dare to fight. We agreed that the Cossacks would hand over their weapons, and the governor would let them pass through Astrakhan. The Razins entered the city, gave away several cannons, but, of course, did not part with muskets, carbines, squeaks, sabers and pikes. A foreign observer wrote later, with what delight the common people met the hero who beat the Persians. Ataman was called "father". Razin, however, "promised to soon free everyone from the yoke and slavery of the boyar." “The mob willingly listened to that,” promised to come to the rescue, “if only he would start”. With the booty, Stenka returned to the Don, where most of the homely and golutven Cossacks were ready to recognize him as the supreme chieftain. The rumor about the dashing chieftain spread far beyond the free Don.
FILL STOMACH WITH SAND
This man is cruel and rude, especially when drunk: then he finds the greatest pleasure in tormenting his subordinates, whom he orders to tie their hands over their heads, fill their stomachs with sand and then throw them into the river.
RAZIN'S NEW HIKE TO THE VOLGA 1670
In the spring of 1670 Stepan Razin appeared on the Volga. From all sides people ran to the ataman: peasants, Cossacks, "working people" from the Volga fishery, all sorts of walking people. This time the ataman acted in the name of the "Great Tsarevich Tsarevich" Alexei Alekseevich. The eldest son of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich - Tsarevich Alexei died unexpectedly. There were various rumors among the people about him. Stepan Razin said that the tsarevich did not die, but fled from the "boyar lies" and gave him, the ataman of the Don, the order of his father, the tsar: to wage war with the "traitor boyars" and give all ordinary people freedom. Stenka's lovely letters were flying around the country, calling (“seducing”) the rabble to revolt. A peasant war broke out in Russia. The cry of the chieftain: “I have come to give you freedom!” Resonated in the hearts of enslaved people. Razin stated that the life of the country would be arranged following the example of the Cossack Don with his Cossack circle and the choice of the chieftain.
Tsaritsyn surrendered to Razin without a fight. The rebels moved towards Astrakhan. The vents of 400 guns looked at the rebels from the stone walls of the city. The governor and the nobles were preparing to fight, and the black people shouted to the Cossacks: “Climb, brothers. We have been waiting for you for a long time. "
The assault began at night, and by morning Astrakhan fell. The voivode was thrown from the belfry, the hated boyars, merchants, clerks were killed. Razin left to govern the city of Vasily Us and Fyodor Sheludyak, and he went up the Volga.
The well-fortified Saratov and Samara surrendered to the chieftain without a fight. Everywhere the commoners rejoiced. “Many summers for our daddy! May he defeat all the boyars and princes! " - shouted the people. “For the cause, brothers,” answered the ataman, “now we will take revenge on the tyrants, who until now have held you in captivity worse than the Turks or pagans. I came to give you all freedom and deliverance, you will be my brothers and children, and you will be as good as I am. Only be courageous and remain faithful! "
HOOK
On July 3, my first tormentors dragged me out of Faber's house and brought me to the river bank, threatening to throw me into it if I did not pay them 500 francs ransom ... Three days later they took me to the leader, who drank with his friends in the governor's cellar. Here I saw three Cossacks dressed in my best clothes. There I remained for about a quarter of an hour, during which the leader drank several times to my health ...
On the 9th, they stuck a hook in the side of the secretary Alexei Alekseevich and hung him together with the son of the Gilyansk khan on a pole, on which they died a few days later.
After that, on the wall of the Kremlin they hanged the two sons of the governor by the legs, one of whom was only 8 years old, and the other 16. Since both of them were still alive, the next day the younger was untied, and the older one was thrown from the tower, from which in a few days before that, the father was thrown ...
On the 21st, the leader, accompanied by 1200 people, left Astrakhan ... In his absence, as in his time, the massacre continued, and not a day passed in which more than 150 people were not killed.
Defeat Razin near Simbirsk
Alexei Mikhailovich, frightened by the scale of the rebellion, called on all the capital and provincial nobles and children of the boyars "to serve for the great sovereign and for their homes." 60 thousand horsemen lined up for a review near Moscow. Streltsy and regiments of the new order were added to them. Voivode Yuri Dolgoruky "with his comrades" K. Shcherbatov, Y. Baryatinsky and others were waiting for these troops near Arzamas to attack the "rebels and thieves." Yuri Baryatinsky with the vanguard of the tsarist troops moved to Kazan, then to Sviyazhsk. Attempts by the Razin people to stop him here were unsuccessful. On October 1, 1670, a decisive battle began under the Simbirsk walls. Baryatinsky lifted the siege from the Simbirsk Kremlin and released the warriors of the voivode Miloslavsky from there.
Stenka Razin fought in the hottest places. The chieftain's head was cut open, his leg was shot through, but the "dad" fought all the way until his army fled. The chieftain with the Cossacks locked himself in one of the towers of the old prison. Waking up from his wounds, he rushed with the Cossacks into a new attack, but became a victim of the cunning of the governor Yuri. Baryatinsky sent one detachment to Sviyaga and ordered them to shout loudly. Hearing the "shouts", Stenka thought that a new tsarist army was coming. The chieftain loaded the Don Cossacks on plows and sailed with them to Tsaritsyn, and then went to the Don to gather a new army.
RULES
Without mercy, the tsarist commanders of the "orphaned" rebels of the Volga region, Tambov region, Sloboda Ukraine were smashed. “It is scary to look at Arzamas,” a contemporary wrote, “its suburbs seemed like a perfect hell: there were gallows everywhere, and each one hung 40 and 50 corpses; there were scattered heads strewn about and smoked with fresh blood; here were the stakes on which the criminals suffered and were often alive for three days, experiencing indescribable suffering. Over the course of three months, 11 thousand people were executed. " They tortured and killed not only in Arzamas. In Kozmodemyansk, Baryatinsky executed 60 people, ordered a hundred to cut off their hands, beat 400 people with a whip.
The council of the Russian clergy cursed Stepan Razin and his followers.
And Stenka tried to lift Don. But the homely Cossacks, led by the godfather of Stenka Razin, the military chieftain Kornila Yakovlev, who for a long time supported the dashing godson, but did not want a punitive expedition of the tsarist troops to appear on the Don, met Razin's Cossacks with hostility. On April 14, 1671, they attacked Kagalnik, where the chieftain was stationed. The town burst into flames on four sides, and its defenders were hacked to death. Razin, who fought desperately, was taken prisoner. Soon they caught Stenka's brother, Frol. Through Kursk and Serpukhov, 200 Cossacks were taken to Moscow by Stepan and Frol Razin. "All the trouble is because of you!" - sobbed Frol. “There is no trouble,” his brother answered, “we will be received honorably; the biggest gentlemen will come out to look at us. " For the capture of the Razins, Don's homely Cossacks received a special "sovereign's salary": 3 thousand silver rubles of money, 4 thousand quarters of bread, 200 buckets of wine, 150 poods of gunpowder and lead.
And the famous ataman Stepan Razin, after being tortured, was quartered on June 6, 1671 on Red Square in Moscow. By the time of the execution of Stepan Razin, his chieftains were still fighting. The entire Lower Volga region was in their hands. But the tsarist troops were advancing. The refusal of the homely Cossacks to support the rebels deprived them of the opportunity to draw strength from the Don. The insurgent peasants and Cossacks carried out scattered actions.
In July 1671, ataman Vasily Us tried to climb up the Volga and even reached Simbirsk. Here he was defeated and returned to Astrakhan. The siege of Astrakhan began, and at the end of November the city was taken. Executions and reprisals followed again. Escaping, the rebels fled to Siberia, to the Urals, some made their way north to the Old Believer Solovetsky Monastery.
RAGS ON SOLOVKI
The abbot of the monastery, the schismatic Nikanor, received everyone: fugitive archers, Cossacks, walking people, slaves who had left their masters. The last Razins also began to fight under the banner of the old faith. Solovki fell on January 22, 1676 from betrayal. Chernetz Theoktistus ran over to the enemy's side at night and pointed out the secret entrance to the monastery. When darkness fell on the Solovetsky Island, the archers entered the monastery and, after a fierce battle, occupied it. The Old Believers were killed, and 60 people "who were the instigators of theft" were subjected to cruel executions. Some were hung upside down, others, stripped naked in the bitter cold, were hooked under the ribs. The unfortunate died in terrible agony.
RAZIN IN EUROPEAN PERIODIC EDITIONS AND CHRONICLES
Among foreign sources about S. Razin's uprising, a special place is occupied by news that appeared on the pages of the then newspapers and other continuing publications. At one time, these messages served as the main type of information for the Western European reading public about events in Russia, and for this reason they are of undoubted interest for historians.
"European Saturday Newspaper", 1670, No. 38 Moscow, 14 August. Reliable news came that the well-known rebel Stepan Timofeevich Razin not only joins more and more people and troops every day, but also achieved great success near Astrakhan. After he put to flight the archers sent against him and destroyed several thousand of them, he began to storm Astrakhan, and since the local garrison, against the commandant's will, opened the gates for him, he took the city, and the commandant and those princes and boyars who remained faithful to the king, ordered to hang. The plundering of churches was prevented by the local metropolitan.
The said rebel sent a letter to the archimandrite in Kazan demanding that he, upon his arrival, come out to meet him with the proper honors. They fear that he will try to seize the fortress of Tarki, located at the very border of the royal possessions near the Caspian Sea. And since this place is far from Moscow and under the current circumstances, as can already be seen, it will be difficult to send aid there, it is possible that the Tarki will also be ruled by the rebels and trade with Prussia and Russia may be interrupted. As a result, Moscow will also find itself in great difficulty, since until now from these places [from the Caspian Sea] all the salted fish, which this people, observing many fasts, very much need, have been brought here. Salt was also brought from there and brought to the king from these possessions every year 40,000 horses.
The Moscow general Dolgorukov, sent against the rebels, demands a hundred thousandth army, otherwise he does not dare to appear in the eyes of the enemy. But the court is not able to collect such an army, since the burdensome people do not want to pay five rubles for this, referring to their failure
Reliable news of the mutiny in Muscovy. A certain person writes on October 3 from Copenhagen: by the grace of God, he made a trip from Moscow in five weeks and heard there a lot of amazing things about the rebellion of Stepan Razin. This is a great tyrant, and when the city of Astrakhan was captured, he ordered the voivode of this fortress to be thrown from the tower, he himself outraged his wife and daughter, and then ordered to tie them completely naked to horses, backwards, and give them up for desecration to the Kalmyks - the most terrible of all Tatars ... He ordered to cut off the arms and legs, many German officers, and then tie them in sacks and throw them into the Volga. He himself outraged their wives, and then gave them to the Kalmyks
The story of how the leader of the rebels, Stepan Razin, together with his brother, were arrested, taken to Moscow and here they were tortured to death. Stepan Razin, a world famous, main and foremost rebel against Moscow, is reported in a report dated July 1 from Riga to Livonia. Here, there is almost no doubt that he was arrested, since all letters confirm this, and the last mail says: side of the Don Cossacks and to act by force against the king, the above-mentioned Don Cossacks pretended that they approve of his desire and want to fulfill it, having the intention to trap the fox by means of such a trick. When the Cossacks learned that Razin and his brother had stayed in a shelter, where he was not afraid of anything, they attacked him and took him and his brother prisoner. Finally, both of them were brought under the escort of thousands of musketeers to the capital Moscow. According to a report from Moscow on June 16, on that day, the sentence was carried out over the leader of the rebels, Razin. In order to be seen by as many people as possible (for there were more than a hundred thousand people) and in order to expose the villain to the greatest disgrace, he was placed on a wide cart seven feet high. A gallows was erected on the cart, under which stood Razin, tightly chained to it: one by the neck, the other around the waist and the third by the legs. Both hands were nailed to the edges of the wagon, and a lot of blood was flowing from them. A plank was nailed in the middle of the gallows to support his head. His brother, too, was chained hand and foot and chained to the cart he had to follow, and he felt very bad because he was shamed in front of so many thousands of people. [Stepan] looked at his brother all the time, and as he was more and more timid, [Stepan], hardened with anger, said to him: “Brother, what are you so afraid of? We should have thought about it before before starting this game, and now it's too late. So drop your fear! Since we have bravely set to work, we must remain so. Are you afraid of death? But we will have to die someday. Or do you care that the rest of our accomplices will have a bad time too? They will be more prudent, and heaven will help them in their affairs, so that they will not have to fear such a punishment. " From these cruel and inflammatory speeches, the brother turned even more pale, and Razin expressed many other threats to the Muscovites, until finally, at the appointed place, he was put to death. At the request of some noble Germans, envoys of different lands, and the Persian ambassador, they were honored and they were led under strong protection of soldiers through the assembled crowd to the cart, and this was allowed for them so that they could see and hear everything and tell in detail about the execution that took place. ... They were so close that some of them returned [home] splattered with the blood of the executed. This execution took place as follows: first, both of his hands were cut off, then both legs and, finally, his head. These five body parts were planted on five stakes - for show, as a frightening example for passers-by, and the disfigured body was thrown out in the evening to be eaten by hungry dogs. This was the end of this execution.
The enslavement of the peasants in accordance with the Cathedral Code of 1649;
A surplus of fugitive peasants on the Don;
Discontent of the peoples of the Volga region with state oppression.
driving forces uprisings: Cossacks, peasants, serfs, townspeople, archers, peoples of the Volga region.
The Crimean Khanate blocked the river. Don chains, Don Cossacks lost access to the Sea of Azov, "campaigns for zipuns" in this direction stopped. In 1666 the Cossack chieftain Vasily Us with a detachment went to Moscow, plundering estates and estates. Us reached Tula, but retreated to the Don in front of the tsarist army.
Cossack chieftain, a native of the village of Zimoveyskaya Stepan Razin(c. 1630-1671) in 1667-1669. made a daring campaign "for zipuns" to Persia, devastated the coast of the Caspian Sea, defeated the Persian army and navy. Then Razin captured the Yaitsky town, plundered the caravan of ships of the tsar, patriarch and merchant V. Shorin. In the spring 1670 The city of Razin attacked the Russian lands. Vasily Us joined him. Razin sent out “ lovely letters"(Campaign messages) calling for a campaign against the boyars and nobles. To attract the people, Razin spread a false rumor that his army included Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich (the son of the Tsar, who had already died in 1670) and the disgraced Patriarch Nikon. The main goal of the campaign was Moscow, the route was the Volga. The rebels took Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan, Saratov, Samara, and besieged Simbirsk. Destroying boyars and nobles, they introduced Cossack self-government. In Astrakhan, all noble and rich people were executed, the elderly voivode I. Prozorovsky thrown "off the roll" (the fortress wall), his 12-year-old son was hung upside down on the wall. The movement spread to Solovki and Ukraine, where Stepan's younger brother acted - Frol Razin.
To suppress the uprising, the tsar sent a 60-thousand army commander Yu Dolgoruky and Yuri Baryatinsky. They severely punished the insurgents; everywhere there were gallows with the hanged. In October 1670, the Razins were defeated near Simbirsk. The wounded chieftain fled to the Don, to the Kagalnitsky town. However, the homely Cossacks, led by the ataman Korniloy Yakovlev fearing the tsar's anger, they betrayed Razin. After severe torture in the summer of 1671, he was quartered in Moscow. Frol Razin, seeing his brother's torment, shouted in horror "The word and deed of the sovereign!" He was taken away from under the executioner's ax, tortured to find out where the stolen treasures were hidden, and executed five years later in 1676.
Reasons for the defeat of Stepan Razin :
The tsarist character of the uprising. The peasants believed in the possibility of improving life under the new "good tsar" ( naive monarchism);
Spontaneity, fragmentation and locality of movement;
Weak weapons and poor organization of the rebels.
In this way, the popular movements of the 17th century, on the one hand, played the role of limiting the exploitation of the feudal lords. But, on the other hand, the suppression of these uprisings led to the strengthening of the state apparatus, the tightening of legislation. Now there is a rethinking of the meaning of peasant wars, their Cossack, free-rebellious content is noted. The negative influence of the peasant wars, and, in essence, of the Cossack-peasant revolts, on the fate of Russia is emphasized. Even if the Razins had managed to capture Moscow (in China, for example, the rebels managed to take power several times), they would not have been able to create a new just society. After all, the only example of such a just society in their minds was the Cossack circle. But the whole country cannot exist at the expense of the seizure and division of other people's property. Any state needs a management system, an army, taxes. Therefore, the victory of the insurgents would inevitably be followed by new social differentiation. The victory of Stepan Razin would inevitably lead to great sacrifices and cause significant damage to Russian culture and the development of the state.
In the second half of the 17th century, a difficult situation developed on the territory of Russia. The exhausting war with the Turks and Poles had a detrimental effect on the economic state of the state. The outbreak of epidemics and a shortage of bread in some regions of the country led to an increase in discontent among the population with representatives of the tsarist government. A special scope of indignation fell on the Don, where the Cossacks most acutely felt the infringement of their rights and the deterioration of life. It was there that in 1667 a merciless riot broke out, which some historians called the peasant war led by Stepan Razin.
At the time of the beginning of the uprising, Razin was already a popular chieftain, enjoyed a well-deserved prestige among the Cossacks, and it was not difficult for him to become the head of the Cossack army. Moreover, he had personal reasons: to avenge the death of his elder brother, who was executed by order of Prince Dolgoruky. The first campaign was made by a Cossack detachment to the lower reaches of the Don. The ataman wanted to take the rich booty and give it to the poor in need of help. Having captured several caravans with a rich catch, Razin returned. After this campaign, his popularity among the peasants and the Cossacks increased sharply. The influx of people into his detachments increased, where they were immediately given freedom. The main demands of the rebels were reduced to the abolition of serfdom and exemption from taxes. This explains the reasons for the uprising led by Stepan Razin. Many serfs supported the demands and reached out to the chieftain. The number of his troops increased significantly. Arming people, replenishing supplies, Razin decides to go to Moscow to punish the boyars, and to achieve the fulfillment of his demands. From the first steps of their campaign, the participants in the uprising achieved great success. The population everywhere welcomed the rebels and provided them with every possible support. Unrest covered the territories of the Don, the Volga region, Mordovia. Many cities were captured, in particular Tsaritsyn, Samara, Saratov, Astrakhan. Executions of nobles and archery chiefs take place everywhere.
In 1670, the main stage of the uprising of Stepan Razin begins. The tsarist government is pulling large forces to the rebellious territory, consisting of soldiers' regiments, detachments of nobility and Reitarsk cavalry. The main events take place near Simbirsk, which the rebels unsuccessfully tried to take. The main goals set for themselves by the tsarist governors were to help the besieged Simbirsk repel the attack of the rebels and defeat their main forces. After a month of heavy fighting, they managed to defeat the main forces of the rebels and drive them away from the city. In these battles, the leader of the riot, Stepan Razin, was seriously wounded. He left the command and went to the Don.
After his departure, a split began in the actions of the rebels, which explains the reasons for the defeat of the rebels. The fragmentation of actions and lack of coordination led to the defeat of many detachments and the liberation of cities previously occupied by the rebels. The tsarist troops, more organized and better trained, began the pursuit of the defeated detachments and cruel reprisals against the rebels. In an effort to gain the favor of the tsar, the Cossack foremen decided to betray Razin. They captured him and brought him to Moscow, where, after long torture, he was quartered. After the execution of the rebellious chieftain, the uprising was very quickly suppressed. Many of the participants were executed, the account numbered in the thousands. The defeat led to the consolidation of the tsarist power, serfdom encompassed new territories. The landowners strengthened ownership of land and increased ownership rights to serfs, such are the disappointing results of the uprising led by Stepan Razin.
The uprising of Stepan Razin or the Peasants' War (1667-1669. 1st stage of the uprising "Hike for the Zipuns", 1670-1671. 2nd stage of the uprising) - the largest popular uprising of the second half of the 17th century. The war between the insurgent peasantry and the Cossacks against the tsarist troops.
Who is Stepan Razin
The first historical information about Razin refers to 1652 (born around 1630 - death on June 6 (16), 1671) - the Don Cossack, the leader of the peasant uprising in 1667-1671. Born into the family of a prosperous Cossack in the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don. Father - Cossack Timofey Razin.
Reasons for the uprising
The final enslavement of the peasants, which was caused by the adoption of the Cathedral Code of 1649, the beginning of a mass search for fugitive peasants.
The deterioration of the situation of peasants and townspeople due to the increase in taxes and duties caused by the wars with Poland (1654-1657) and Sweden (1656-1658), the flight of people to the south.
The accumulation of poor Cossacks and fugitive peasants on the Don. The deterioration of the position of the service people who guarded the southern borders of the state.
Attempts by the authorities to limit the Cossack freedom.
Demands of the rebels
The Razintsy put forward the following requirements to the Zemsky Sobor:
Abolish serfdom and the complete emancipation of the peasants.
Formation of the Cossack troops as part of the government army.
Reduction of taxes and duties imposed on the peasantry.
Decentralization of power.
Permit for sowing grain in the Don and Volga lands.
Background
1666 - a detachment of Cossacks under the command of Ataman Vasily Usa invaded from the Upper Don into the borders of Russia, was able to reach almost to Tula, ruining noble estates on its way. Only the threat of a meeting with large government forces forced Us to turn back. With him went to the Don and many serfs who joined him. The campaign of Vasily Us showed that the Cossacks are ready at any time to oppose the existing order and power.
The first campaign 1667-1669
The situation on the Don became more and more tense. The number of fugitives increased rapidly. The contradictions between the poor and the rich Cossacks intensified. In 1667, after the end of the war with Poland, a new stream of fugitives poured into the Don and other places.
1667 - a detachment of a thousand Cossacks, led by Stepan Razin, went to the Caspian Sea on a campaign “for zipuns,” that is, for prey. Razin's detachment during 1667-1669 plundered Russian and Persian merchant caravans, attacked the coastal Persian cities. With rich booty, the Razins returned to Astrakhan, and from there to the Don. The “Zipoon hike” was, in fact, predatory. But its meaning is much broader. It was during this campaign that the core of the Razin army was formed, and the generous distribution of alms to ordinary people brought the ataman unheard of popularity.
1) Stepan Razin. Engraving of the late 17th century; 2) Stepan Timofeevich Razin. 17th century engraving.
The uprising of Stepan Razin 1670-1671
1670, spring - Stepan Razin began a new campaign. This time he decided to go against the "traitor boyars". Tsaritsyn was taken without a fight, the inhabitants of which themselves gladly opened the gates to the rebels. The archers sent against the Razins from Astrakhan went over to the side of the rebels. The rest of the Astrakhan garrison followed their example. Those who resisted, the governor and the Astrakhan nobles, were killed.
After the Razin people headed up the Volga. On the way, they sent out “lovely letters” urging ordinary people to beat boyars, governors, nobles and clerks. In order to attract supporters, Razin spread rumors that Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich and Patriarch Nikon were in his army. The main participants in the uprising were Cossacks, peasants, serfs, townspeople and workers. The cities of the Volga region surrendered without resistance. In all the cities taken, Razin introduced management on the model of the Cossack circle.
It should be noted that the Razins, in the spirit of those times, did not spare their enemies - torture, cruel executions, violence "accompanied" them during the campaigns.
Suppression of the uprising. Execution
Failure awaited the ataman near Simbirsk, whose siege dragged on. Meanwhile, such a scale of the uprising provoked a response from the authorities. 1670, autumn - inspected the noble militia and an army of 60 thousand moved forward to suppress the uprising. 1670, October - the siege of Simbirsk was lifted, 20 thousand army of Stepan Razin was defeated. The chieftain himself was seriously wounded. His comrades carried him out of the battlefield, loaded him into a boat and sailed down the Volga in the early morning of October 4. Despite the catastrophe near Simbirsk and the wounding of the chieftain, the uprising continued throughout the autumn and winter of 1670/71.
Stepan Razin was captured on April 14 in Kagalnik by homely Cossacks led by Kornila Yakovlev and handed over to the government voivods. He was soon taken to Moscow.
Execution ground on Red Square, where, as a rule, decrees were read, again, as in the time of ... Ivan the Terrible ..., became the place of execution. The square was cordoned off by a triple row of archers, the place of execution was guarded by foreign soldiers. Armed warriors were stationed throughout the capital. 1671, June 6 (16) - after severe torture, Stepen Razin was quartered in Moscow. His brother Frol was allegedly executed on the same day. The participants in the uprising were severely persecuted and executed. More than 10 thousand rioters were executed throughout Russia.
Results. Reasons for defeat
The main reasons for the defeat of the uprising of Stepan Razin were its spontaneity and low organization, the disunity of the actions of the peasants, which, as a rule, were limited to the defeat of the estate of their own master, the lack of clearly understood goals among the rebels. Contradictions between different social groups in the camp of the rebels.
Considering the uprising of Stepan Razin briefly, it can be attributed to the peasant wars that shook Russia in the 16th century. This century was called the "rebellious age". The uprising led by Stepan Razin is just one episode of the time that came in the Russian state after.
However, due to the fierceness of the clashes, the confrontation between the two hostile camps, Razin's uprising became one of the most powerful popular movements of the "rebellious century".
The rebels were unable to achieve any of their goals (the destruction of the nobility and serfdom): the strengthening of the royal power continued.
Ataman Kornilo (Korniliy) Yakovlev (who captivated Razin) was "on Azov affairs" a colleague of Stepan's father and his godfather.
The brutal executions of representatives of the nobility and members of their families became, as one might say now, the "calling card" of Stepan Razin. He came up with new types of executions, which sometimes made even his loyal supporters uncomfortable. For example, one of the sons of the governor Kamyshin, the ataman ordered to be executed, dipped in boiling tar.
A small part of the rebels, even after the injury and flight of Razin, remained true to his ideas and defended Arkhangelsk from the tsarist troops until the end of 1671.
As the city uprisings unfolded in accordance with the rhetoric of petition and advice, they presented the Moscow government with more ambiguous dilemmas than the Cossack-peasant uprising of 1670-1671 led by Stepan Razin.
It was a massive armed uprising, and its suppression turned into a real open war. The violence from both sides was terrible. Although P. Avrich asserted that “the repressions in their cruelty far surpassed the reprisals perpetrated by the insurgents,” the opposite conclusion can also be substantiated. On a vast territory, the rebels killed tsarist officials, merchants, landowners and clergymen, and burned villages and villages. But even in such an electrified military environment, each side maintained its own moral economy. For the state, this meant following the existing patterns of criminal justice: the search process, the keeping of protocols, differential punishments, mass pardons, and indicative executions for the most dangerous rioters in their ferocity. At the same time, everything was carried out more intensively than usual: accelerated proceedings, more severe torture, more severe types of executions, but the state nevertheless suppressed the mass uprising in such a way that exemplary punishment was balanced by the restoration of stability.
Regimental and city governors who fought the uprising were ordered to comply with all aspects of the judicial procedure. An excellent example of this is the memory of the voivode I.V. Buturlin (October 9, 1670): if one of the rebellious Cossacks becomes "beat with his brow and bring his guilt", the voivode had to reprimand them for "theft and treason", but on behalf of the tsar, who does not want to "over them, the Orthodox Christians, blood-angering ”, declare forgiveness. Buturlin should have demanded from them the extradition of the leaders and questioned those "firmly", "torture and burn with fire"; those found guilty, the voivode had to execute, without waiting for the approval of the tsar, "having told them their guilt, in front of many people ... so that, in the future, it would be discouraging to steal like that as another thief and to stick to treason and theft." Further, Buturlin was ordered to take the oath of oath and “release them to their homes” without punishment and without destroying their homes. In another similar order; sent in September 1670 to the governor G.G. Romodanovsky, he was instructed to "kill the heirs" "to execute with death, which deaths according to our great sovereign decree and according to the Cathedral Code are worthy". The Ukrainian and Don Cossacks loyal to Moscow were explicitly instructed to judge the guilty "according to your military rights"; various documents certify that they did so1. The orders were clear: before being executed, the governors should investigate the case (“find”). Here, as in a microcosm, the traditional judicial procedure manifests itself.
In wartime conditions, everything took place according to an accelerated procedure. Like Buturlin, a number of other governors were instructed to execute the instigators without exile from Moscow. In September 1670 G.G. Romodanovsky was given permission to execute Colonel Dzinkovsky, who had joined the rebels; the voivode was advised not to wait any longer for Moscow's approval to execute such traitors.
The category gave a similar permission to the governor of Kozlov in November 16701. This swift punishment flourished throughout the theater of war. In the unsubscribe drawn up in late September or early October, voivode Yu.A. Dolgorukov confirmed that he had received an order to send eyewitnesses to the center with news and replies with interrogative speeches, and "the worst thieves and wardens were ordered to whip and hang their hands and feet in those towns and counties where they stole, in a conspicuous place." In accordance with these instructions, he reported that the rebels took Temnikov and killed government officials there, and his troops captured many "thieves' Cossacks", about whom, upon questioning, their guilt was revealed. Such voivode ordered to be executed by cutting off the head, and not by hanging, which speaks of a certain freedom of action in punishment. The governors constantly wrote to Moscow about the capture of the rebels, the investigation of their wines through interviews with local residents, interrogations and torture, and the execution of the leaders. The less guilty were subjected to corporal punishment, sometimes with self-harm. Other governors wrote about how they executed the "breeders", according to orders, without writing off with Moscow. Often the commanders of government forces were assisted by local residents who betrayed the ringleaders and leaders in the hope of mitigating their own fate.
The authorities demanded that an investigation be carried out before the execution. So, Dolgorukov in November 1670 reported that he had conducted an investigation and executed the rebels brought by his subordinates - 12 peasants and Cossacks from Kurmysh. Regimental voivode F.I. Leontyev reported in October 1670 that he had captured many Cossacks and investigated them; after questioning and torture, they confessed that they had killed the governor and nobles in Alatyr. He ordered some to be beheaded in the rebel camp, and some to be taken to Alatyr and near other cities in "conspicuous places." The governors treated the observance
procedures are serious. Regimental voivode Daniil Baryatinsky reported in his formal reply on November 5, 1670 that in Kozmodemyansk he had not yet established who "to trust", because "about treason and about the murder of the warrior [has not yet] been searched for." Already on November 17, he could report that “against the thieves and traitors by the Kuzmodemyan priests and inhabitants of Gratsk and all ranks of people, he was sacking” and for this investigation “400 people were mercilessly beaten with a whip, 100 of them were mutilated,“ the thieves and wardens were executed by death 60 people "; 450 Russians were brought to the "faith", and 505 of the Cheremis people - to the shert (oath). The Totem voivode wrote that he had captured ataman Ilyushka Ivanov in mid-December 1670 and "against ... the Cathedral code and the laws of the Greek tsars were executed ... hanged by the verbal petition of the Totem zemstvo headman ... and all Totmyans." In June 1671, the Tambov voivode requested instructions on what to do with the prison inmates, whom he promised forgiveness and freedom during the siege of Tambov by the rebels. Moscow recommended that the cases of serious criminal offenses be transferred to the Robbery Order, and for the prisoners "in small investigative cases" to hold an adversarial trial "bezvolokitno". At the end of 1671, a detective was sent to Assassin to investigate the actions of the rebels; as a result of his activities, at least 10 people were executed and several others were beaten with a whip1.
Unswerving adherence to the established procedure was prescribed so strictly that at the beginning of 1671, at the end of the uprising, the Smolensk gentry was forbidden to take the inhabitants of the rebellious regions into the "full" and take them to their servitude; the prisoners found on them were returned to their places of residence in the Volga region. In the spirit of the same orders, an investigation was carried out on the acceptance in Astrakhan by the tsar's brother-in-law boyar I.B. Miloslavsky rebels into his household as slaves. Good faith adherence to the procedure manifests itself in other aspects as well. After Kadom was recaptured from the rebels, the officer appointed instead of the governor reported that the rebels destroyed most of the documents in the command hut, but that a copy of the Cathedral Code was preserved there. The Kerensky voivode wrote in February 1671 that the thieves' Cossacks destroyed the Code and other important documents in the command hut,
without which "Rosprava to repair ... there is nothing." Many turned to Moscow for additional instructions before deciding a particular case or the fate of a social group, since this was not covered by their cash orders. Voivode Narbekov reported in November 1670 that he did not have instructions on how to deal with priests and monks if they turned out to be “covetous” and “stealing” 1. In March 1671, the Kozlovsky governor asked for instructions on how to punish the arrested rebel wives; the Kadom governor complained about the lack of an order on how to resolve claims in crimes during the uprising of some Kadomites against others; the Temnikovsky voivode reported that local residents beat their foreheads about resolving their cases "according to the Cathedral Code".
The governors reported on their sentences ranging from corporal punishment to death, depending on the guilt. In the list of the insurgents, who were punished on Vetluga from December 1670, it is indicated that in one village 4 people were hanged, and 11 were whipped and subjected to self-mutilation. In another village five were hanged, one man was whipped and mutilated; in another - 54 people were whipped. After the capture of Astrakhan in the fall of 1672, dozens of processes were carried out, the result of which was punishment from execution and exile until release on bail. The Kadoma voivode also sent in February 1671 a list of the hangings, whipping and cutting off the fingers of those found by the guilty by investigation, questioning and torture. In one case, the peasant was saved from death, because his landowner testified that he served with the rebels against his will, and at the same time he, the landowner, "took away from death" and "buried".
After the suppression of the revolt, the tsarist governors, as they were ordered, generously bestowed mercy. City and regimental governors sent to Moscow lists of tens and hundreds of names of Russians, Cherkas, Tatars, Mordovians and others who took the oath of allegiance. In November 1670, for example, Prince Baryatinsky, bringing several people to the wool
captured Chuvash, sent them "for the agreement of other Chyuvash and Cheremis", so that they surrender. As a result, another 549 Chuvashes came to the voivode and took the oath. At the same time, he executed more than 20 Chuvashes and at least two Russians, and several more were whipped. According to Prince Dolgorukov, he “brought to faith” (oath) and released more than 5,000 peasants in the Nizhny Novgorod district without punishment1.
Such a broad pardon was both shrewd and pragmatic. In the spirit of the dominant ideology, it demonstrated royal benevolence and was aimed at restoring confidence in the authorities. In the documents, such massive forgiveness is explained by the fact that people were deceived by “that thief Stenka Razin” of “thieves' charm”. From a pragmatic point of view, the uprising was so extensive that the state could not physically punish every participant. Moreover, it was unwilling to risk another outbreak, the danger of which was evident in November 1670. The Kasimov city voivode reported that he had sent emissaries around the county, urging them to surrender at the tsar's mercy, but the Kasimov regimental voivode, despite his request to postpone active actions while they were campaigning, ordered to hang four Kadom peasant rebels. The Kadomites were so furious at this that they also killed four emissaries of the commander.
Compliance with due process and widespread amnesty, however, should not obscure the fact that the course of events was filled with violence. Russian commanders themselves described scenes of brutality in battle. Prince Yu.N. Baryatinsky speaks in these words about the battle at Ust-Urenskaya Sloboda on November 12, 1670, when “they were flogged, thieves, horsemen and footmen, so that it was impossible for a horseman to drive through the corpse in the field, both in the wagon train and in the streets, and as much blood was shed as large streams flowed from the rain. " The prince ordered the "Zavotchiks" to be beheaded ("flogged"), and most of the 323 prisoners - to release, "bring them to the cross." Passing through the insurgent territories, the governors subjected them to destruction. So, the detachment of the governor Ya.T. Khitrovo, pursuing the Cossacks to the Shatsk village of Sasovo in October 1670, dispersed many through the forests, laid many in battle; "The traitors" ^ ovoda ordered
hang, and the village itself was "burned out" by the military people. Then the rest of the Sasov peasants were led “to the faith” with the order “so that ani their brothers ... when they find them, they slander them to bring ani ... to you, the great sovereign, their guilt ... and in everything to your great the sovereign's mercy were reliable. " Voevoda F.I. Leontyev captured a number of rebels in the Nizhny Novgorod district in November 1670; He put 20 people to death after questioning and torture with fire, and the fortifications built by them, and the villages and villages of the peasants, "who stole and molested the thieves' Cossacks," "ordered to destroy and burn out." But he also accepted the surrender of at least four villages, where he "led to faith" nearly 1200 people1.
The government intended the violence to serve a demonstration purpose. So, at the end of November 1670, the Ukrainian hetman D.I. The many-sinful were sent extracts from the formal replies of Prince Yu.A. Dolgorukov on his victories over the rebels, which details the bloody march of his army down the Volga from the end of September, marked by group executions of the leaders after each battle. As usual, the goal was to discourage others (in the mandate memorials of the governors, the usual phrase is constantly encountered: "So that in the future it would be discouraging for other thieves to steal like that"), but the intention to rule by means of intimidation is also visible. For example, in September 1670, Prince G.G. Romodanovskiy was ordered to execute all the caught "zavotchik", "so that the case was to fear many people" 2.
An indicative execution in a curious manner took place in the winter of 1670-1671. The Cossack leader Ilyushka Ivanov was captured on December 11 and hanged the next day in Totma. The governor of nearby Galich, having learned about this, demanded that the body of the executed be delivered to him to convince people that Ivanov was indeed "seized and executed." Having received the body, undoubtedly frozen, on December 25, the voivode announced that the "goods" of the deceased had identified the corpse: there was no confusion, and the letter above him, having written the blame for it, ordered to be nailed on a post. " Hearing about this,
* Rivers of blood: KB. T. II. Part 1. No. 251. P. 303. The village of Sasovo: KB. T. II. Part 1. No. 173. Leontiev: KB. T. II. Part 1. No. 244, pp. 293-294.
2 Sinful: KB. T. II. Part 1. No. 264. Disappointing: KB. T. II. Part 1. No. 103, p. 121 (Oct. 1670). No. 155.P. 184 (Oct. 1670). No. 196, p. 234 (Nov. 1670). No. 315 (Dec. 1670). Intimidate: KB. T. II. Part 2.No. 28.
another voivode requested this body for himself for the same purpose, and on January 15 it was sent to the Vetluzhskaya volost1.
The government army was in constant flux, and executions were simple and devoid of theatricality; it was important to gain time. But they had the desired effect. The rebels were hanged and quartered in the most conspicuous places. In a document from November 1670 on the course of battles in the Seversky Donets area, dozens of those hanged (some by the leg), several quartered, the beheading of the "named mother" S. Razin and others hanged along the Donets and various roads are mentioned. The "old woman", who had gathered a detachment of the rebels, was arrested in Temnikov in December 1670; she was accused of heresy and witchcraft. Under torture, she claimed that she had taught the Cossack chieftain witchcraft. She was convicted and sentenced to be burned in the "stuba" along with her "thieves' letters and roots."
An anonymous English story of 1672, belonging to a contemporary, but not necessarily an eyewitness to the events, paints a terrible picture of the "harsh trial" of Voivode Dolgorukov in Arzamas: “This place was a terrible sight and resembled the threshold of hell. Around were erected gallows, and on each hung about 40 or even 50 people. In another place, decapitated bodies were strewn with blood. Here and there stuck out colas with rebels planted on them, of which a considerable number were alive even on the third day, and their groans were still heard. In three months, according to the court, after questioning the witnesses, the executioners put to death eleven thousand people. "
The number of 11 thousand killed in this story may have been exaggerated, but the last remark confirms what we have found out: the punishments were imposed in accordance with the established procedure, "according to the court, after questioning witnesses." The tsarist troops deliberately used brutal violence to punish, to intimidate and to disgust others, but they did not use it arbitrarily.
emphasize the inhumanity of the rebels; the same is done by official documents1. But Razin's Cossacks, like the revolted Cossacks during the Time of Troubles and in general, according to the Cossack custom developed by life in the Eurasian steppe, used violence in order to instill terror. During the Razin uprising, violence was directed against those in whose favor the establishment of serfdom and high taxes on peasants and Cossacks at the turn of the Wild Field turned. The tsarist governors, archers, and foreign troops were found to be guilty of this; officials who kept salary, scribal and salary books and documents; rich merchants; landowners of all kinds, both secular and ecclesiastical. Razin himself substantiated the social movement with the rhetoric of naive monarchism: allegedly he was fighting not against the tsar, but against seditious Moscow boyars and greedy local landowners. Razin argued that the tsar was captured by evil advisers, and the church was desecrated by the wicked bishops who deposed the legitimate patriarch Nikon (he, half Mordvin, came from the middle Volga). To be more convincing, Razin used the strategy of imposture, claiming that he was accompanying the Tsar's son Alexei, who was miraculously saved from a conspiracy of evil boyars, and Nikon himself to Moscow. Together with him, he drove the false Tsarevich and the Lzhenikon, showing them on luxuriously decorated boats. In fact, Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich died at the age of 16 in January 1670, as Moscow tirelessly explained in proclamations sent to the Volga region, and Patriarch Nikon continued to be held in a monastery confinement.
Razin's movement quickly transformed from the usual Cossack campaign "for the zipuns" (1667-1669) into a social uprising,
as he walked up the Volga and Don in the summer and autumn of 1670. The peasants actively joined, sometimes even before the arrival of Cossack detachments in their district, which could organize them. Researchers talk about two parallel uprisings: the Cossack and the peasant. Usually, the insurgents were adjoined by those cities that were very recently founded, often by forcible displacement of the population, and in which the oppression of service and fiscal duties was most severely felt. The fury of the Cossacks turned against the governors and the clerks who were with them, as well as against the officers (many of whom were foreigners) and the troops who remained loyal to the tsar; the population hunted for local officials, secular and church landowners and their clerks and managers. In November 1670, for example, the Cossacks and the outraged peasants seized the "clerks" of several landowners, but they managed to free themselves and even organize resistance to the rebels1. In almost all the cities captured by the rebels, the governors and employees of the congress huts were killed: in Astrakhan, Cherny Yar, Tsaritsyn, Korsun, Alatyr, Ostrogozhsk, Olshansk, Penza, Kozmodemyansk, Insar, Murashkin, Saransk, Verkhny and Nizhny Lomyshe, and dr. ...
Cruelty. perpetrated by the insurgents, in many respects copied the state judicial procedure. The bloody battles carried away many victims, but when the rebels turned to punishing their opponents, the procedures and rituals already familiar to us were applied. Common types of torture were used - whip and fire; imitation of the death penalty, when a person was put on the chopping block, and then forgiveness was announced. This happened once in 1670 with Temnikovsky's clerk and twice with a priest. Another clerk, a member of the embassy seized by the rebels, was brought to the gallows, but pardoned at the request of the polonyans, whom he was taking home to Russia.
The rebels cut off the heads of their victims and hung them upside down, just like the tsarist troops. Such a hanging befell the two sons of the murdered Astrakhan governor in July 1670. The rebels
used their own specific forms of execution. For the Cossacks, whose whole life was connected with the river, drowning was the typical method of putting to death. One foreigner says that the tied victim, before being thrown into the water, was tied with a tight shirt over his head and filled with sand. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, they threw people into the water and stabbed them with spears so that they would sooner drown1. In their executions, the rebels sought maximum publicity and symbolic impact. Dropping from the "roll" (a kind of defenestration) was practiced, as in the Time of Troubles. Then, for example, the Putivl abbot Dionysius begged the people to remain loyal to Tsar Vasily Shuisky, but Tsarevich Peter ordered him to be thrown from the city tower. In the Razin times, the most hated governors (like, for example, Prince I.S.Prozorovsky in Astrakhan in 1670) were also thrown from the walls, as if symbolically driving them out of the city. Another voivode was burned along with his family and clerks when they took refuge in the Alatyr cathedral. Here the cleansing of the city was accomplished by fire. Other governors were simply drowned or hacked to death with swords.
The Cossacks also followed their own special customs of harsh justice. In some cases, to decide the fate of the tsarist officials, they gathered residents into a “circle” - a typical Cossack form of government by expressing approval or disapproval by the assembly. In September 1670, in Ostrogozhsk, the "city people" declared the voivode and the clerk to be "unkind", that is, perpetrating abuses, and they were killed. Instead of a provincial government, the rebels established the power of a "circle" of townspeople; this happened, for example, in Kurmysh in November 1670. The Cossack custom of dividing the booty was also practiced. Foreign officer Ludwig Fabricius, captured in Astrakhan and forced to join the Cossacks, had to accept, no matter how disgusting it was to him, his share of the loot. When investigating after a rebellion is suppressed, gaining a share
booty ("duvan") was considered as evidence of involvement in the riot1.
The execution of Metropolitan Joseph in Astrakhan in May 1671 reveals a striking symbolic discourse associated with the power of the written word. Since June 1670, the Cossacks allowed the Metropolitan and the displaced governor, Prince Semyon Lvov, to live free in Astrakhan, but did not trust them (according to rumors, possibly false, they corresponded with a part of the Don Army loyal to the tsar). The rebels chopped off Lvov's head, and Metropolitan Joseph was seized, although before that they had endured his opposition for several months. As a result, bold denunciations and appeals to the tsarist charters angered the Cossacks, and they put the saint to death.
Throughout the uprising, both sides sent out proclamations and letters, where they urged to support their side or tried to discredit opponents, and also appealed to the surrounding residents. The very appearance of these documents and their pronouncement in front of the people created moments of particular importance for the insurgents and equally for the population. According to the law, they were considered incarnations of the king: the desecration of the king's letters was punished as severely as dishonorable speech about himself. Accordingly, they were treated with such respect, as if they had heard the voice of the king himself; there were frequent incidents when reading official documents. The rebels often tried to break government proclamations - and prevent them from being read: this happened in the Nizhny Novgorod district in October 1670, when the rebels caught the emissaries of the governor Dolgorukov. In a similar story, a priest was brought, as he himself told in October 1670, to a rebel camp, where he was invited to join the uprising. In response, he ordered to read the letter he received
in Moscow, and called on his “spiritual children” (parishioners) to resist the “thieves”. The Cossacks and peasants refused to obey the decree, and then, in accordance with his instructions, he cursed them. They were indignant and wanted to kill him, but at night the priest managed to escape.
The rebels also relied on the strength of the oral appeals of their charismatic leader Stepan Razin, circulated in letters that officials called "adorable." Razin urged the inhabitants of certain territories to join his struggle against the evil boyars, which he waged in the name of Christian God or Muslim Allah, depending on who was the addressee of the message. The rebels read these letters publicly - in September 1670, for example, in Ostrogozhsk after the murder of the governor and clerk, and in November - in the Galich district, where “priests ... letters from thieves ... who sympathized with the uprising ... chimed aloud to everyone for many days”. Government forces made special efforts to remove such proclamations from the conquered territory and sent them to Moscow.
Archives were one of the main goals of the rebels during the capture of cities. G. Michels notes the difference between the atrocities in the Razin uprising from the more religiously inspired "rituals of violence" in Europe during the Reformation: in the Muscovite state, the rebellious peasants did not practice ritualized violence against the bodies of landowners and clergymen, or over objects of religious worship. Instead, they killed relatively few, taking care of the destruction of state and patrimonial documents. There is no doubt that they sought to erase information about enslaving records, servitude, debts, land transactions, etc. But, taking into account how great fear both the insurgents and the tsarist troops showed in front of the documents of the opposite camp, it is tempting to draw a conclusion about the strength of the influence of the voice of power embodied in the letters. He accidentally litigation
protocols and sentences in Russia were read aloud; during the uprisings, the verdicts to the instigators of the riots were read out and nailed in a conspicuous place (the sentence to Razin takes several pages). In such a public announcement, the presence of the tsar himself seemed to be manifested1.
The influence of the words emanating from the government left a decisive imprint on the story of the assassination of Metropolitan Joseph of Astrakhan. Astrakhan fell under the rule of the rebels in June 1670. At the same time, a great bloodshed took place, but the Metropolitan was spared for the time being, until his fate was determined by the documents he had. At the end of 1670, Joseph received the royal proclamations, addressed personally to him, the Astrakhan people and the rebels, which contained instructions that the Metropolitan read them in front of everyone and urged everyone to surrender at the mercy of the king. Joseph ordered at least three lists to be prepared, and one of them, addressed to the rebel commanders, should be sent to them. Te refused to accept the letter. Then Joseph called the townspeople and told the key keeper to read. After the reading, the rioters raised a shout and took the letter from the cleric (he managed to read it to the end). Ha it was the metropolitan with anger “told them ... with reproof to many and called them heretics and traitors,” and they responded with insults and threatened him with death, but in the end they only took away the letter. The next day, the rebels seized the clerk Fyodor and tortured him in order to find out where the copies of the tsar's charter still exist, and three copies were confiscated from the metropolitan.
A few months later, in April 1671, on Easter week, the metropolitan and the rebels had another heated clash, this time at the bazaar, where the rebels responded with obscene language to Joseph's exhortations to submit (without reading letters) to the approaching tsarist army. On the next day, on Great Saturday, Cossack Esauls came to the Metropolitan's courtyard several times, demanding the issuance of royal letters; in response, Joseph wanted to read these letters in the cathedral church, and "the thieves did not listen to those sovereign letters and went from church to their circle." The grumpy metropolitan followed the Cossacks, accompanied by the clergy and ordered to read in a circle
two royal letters, one "to the thieves", the other - "to him, the saint." At the reading of the proclamations, the congregation responded with shouts and threats of arrest and death to the Metropolitan; he responded with calls to the townspeople to seize the Cossacks and put them in prison. The Cossacks took away one letter, but the bishop refused to give the one that was addressed to him personally. On this holy day, the clash ended in a draw; Joseph returned to the cathedral and hid the letter there.
A week after Easter, the rioters seized and tortured the Metropolitan's dean and other confidants, wishing to find out where the letters and their lists were hidden. As a result, the dean was killed, but did not issue a letter. Subsequently, the metropolitan was demanded to sign a paper of loyalty to Razin, to which he refused. On May 11, the Cossacks interrupted the divine service, which was led by the Metropolitan, and demanded that he come to them in a circle. As before, Joseph followed the Cossacks to their assembly, and there the rebels this time crossed the line at which they had previously stopped: they mocked the Metropolitan, seized him and took him away to torture and, as it turned out, to death. Throughout this history, Joseph's authority was multiplied by the fact that he embodied the voice of the king; the physical presence of the document and its reading aloud in that oral culture made those present in fear. Joseph's persistence in proclaiming the king's words sealed his fate.
In dealing with the Metropolitan, the rebels tried to observe certain Cossack traditions: they gathered a circle to discuss the issue of arresting him or not. But this turned out to be an empty formality. A Cossack who protested against the murder of Joseph was himself killed on the spot. The audacity shown in the execution of the bishop, who turned out to be the highest church hierarch among those killed by the rebels, is striking. The story of two cathedral priests who were eyewitnesses of Joseph's last days and who were at that time with him is full of bitter details. When the Metropolitan realized that the Cossacks would no longer give up, he tried to preserve the dignity of his holy dignity: to the horror of the churchmen accompanying him, he himself began to take off the sacred vestments and the cross. Remaining in one simple "duckweed", he went to horrible tortures: he was stretched right over the fire. The rebels tried to extort from him where he kept letters and treasures. After torture, the rebels threw the metropolitan from the roar, and he crashed to death. Sympathetic eyewitnesses note that when the body of the saint fell, “and at that time there was a knock and fear,” and even “the thieves in the circle were all frightened and fell silent, and from a third of an hour
STANDING, hanging their heads. " Soon after the death of the primate, the rebels gathered the remaining cathedral priests and forced them to sign a record of loyalty; in fear, "against their will" they signed it. We see that their authors were embodied in the letters and letters, and their reading by such charismatic figures as Metropolitan Joseph brought to life the image of the tsar and made the bearer of the spoken words overly threatening.
The shocking execution of the Astrakhan Metropolitan, it seems, did not have the effect that the rebels were counting on. It did not bring either joy or improvement to their ever-weakening positions in Astrakhan. Executions can also alienate residents, not just self-confidence or spreading fear. The representatives of the Moscow authorities made sure that their executions of the rebels had an effect in the spirit of the last two results. In the heat of the suppression of the uprising, mass extermination of those who resisted took place in order to instill fear in the population. But when the hostilities subsided, some of the leaders of the riot both locally and in Moscow were executed with greater detail. In September 1670, for example, a priest and several ringleaders from Ostrogozhsk were sent to Moscow for trial. On October 3 they were sentenced and "executed" by quartering. The record of this briefly says that some were executed "at the Swamp", and others - "behind the Jauski gates along the Volodymyrskaya road." The verdict read out before the execution has been preserved; in it, the convicts were significantly informed that their other accomplices were executed at the same time and in the same way in the Volga region1. By carrying out executions in the capital, the state demonstrated to the political class and foreigners its ability to suppress the uprising. And for the most dangerous enemy, the leader of the uprising Stepan Razin, an execution was prepared with an even greater theatrical effect.
Ostrogozh rebels: KB. T. II. Part 2. No. 33. S. 42-43.