"Through the obsession of the Byzantine ligature
It's time to distinguish features and cuts,
So that Russia comes out - the liberated Razin -
And unfolded, like a banner, the Sun-Ra.
(Alexey Shiropaev)
"Two terrible snakes tyrannize me."
(Stepan Razin)
Today we will talk in detail about one of the greatest Russian warlocks - Stepan Razin. Having successfully combined military skill and necromancy, he united under his command the Russian lands, which were larger than any European state of that time. The vile Muscovites did not manage to kill him completely, but they managed to captivate him with charmed chains and, through the ritual of dismemberment, imprison him in the guise of a lich - still alive, but motionless.
The topic is important, the conversation will be long, there will be a lot of letters.
Let's start with a little-known article from an early "Lemons"(highlighted in bold- I):
STEPAN RAZIN: LEGENDRare documents of the 17th century containing the facts of his biography are more striking than the legend about him.
Cossack, a well-known personality in the Don Cossacks even before the outbreak of the Great Riot, commander, military diplomat. According to a contemporary - the secretary of the Swedish embassy in Persia Kempfer, Razin knew eight languages. The fact is surprising, but quite explainable by the fact that the Don Army had permanent diplomatic and trade relations with Persia and Turkey, with its other not entirely peaceful neighbors. Repeatedly heading various embassies, Razin was his own interpreter, in addition to Russian, he spoke Tatar, Kalmyk, Persian, Turkish, Ukrainian, possibly Polish and Lithuanian. Razin must have been in Ukraine in 1665 as part of a Cossack detachment, who, together with Russian troops, fought for the independence of Ukraine from the Polish-Lithuanian state. In this war for arbitrariness, the governor Yuri Dolgoruky was hanged by the elder brother of Stepan Razin - Ivan. Persian and Turkish girls, captured by the Cossacks in robbery campaigns, were not uncommon on the Don, so the knowledge of these languages is not a mystery. Diplomats, military and current politicians, hey! Are you able to say at least "hello" in eight languages?
It is surprising that the man who was the personification of a bloody rebellion, anathematized for 300 years (the church is like a harlot - whoever they say, he will curse), twice went on a pilgrimage, crossed all of Russia - from the Azov to the White Sea - almost two thousand kilometers, - in the fall 1652, being a young man of 23, after repeated participation in campaigns to the Turkish shores, and again in the fall - already in 1661, after he represented the Don Army in negotiations with the Kalmyks. He conducted the negotiations successfully and, after waiting for the summer, Razin, who had reached the age of Christ and Ilya Muromets, went to the other end of the world - to the Solovetsky Monastery. Razin by this time had a lot - position, authority, name, well-being; it is worth mentioning that he was the godson of the ataman of the Don Cossacks - Kornila Yakovlev, that is, the godson of the head of a huge and powerful republic.
Two years after the pilgrimage, with the knowledge of the Army Sergeant, Razin, at the head of the Cossack detachment, makes a military campaign against the Crimeans. In the battle near Milk Waters, Razin's detachment is victorious, which was reported to the sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich.
And in the spring of 1667, Razin already arbitrarily led a detachment of Cossacks to march on Azov, which then belonged to Turkey. The small size of the detachment forced Razin not to take the assault. If events had turned out differently, Azov would have been taken not by Peter I in 1695, but by Razin in 1667.
Soviet historians, who date the beginning of the Peasant War in 1667, are not quite right. Before the Peasant War was still far away. Firstly, at first everything that happened concerned mainly the Cossacks: Razin challenges the rich, snickering part of the Don people who sold themselves to Moscow, who forgot the precepts of the Cossack freemen. His detachment rises along the Don and, as reported in historical documents, "many Cossack towns are ruined, passing merchants and Cossacks are robbed and beaten to death", "many owners and workers are beaten and hanged incessantly."
Further, the Razintsy stood between the rivers of Silence and Ilovlya (tributaries of the Volga with poetic names), robbed a caravan descending the Volga to Astrakhan, freed the exiles, who were a whole plow, chopped up the initial people, kissers, some of them roasted alive beforehand, from the patriarchal plow three "hung on a shoglu by the legs, and others by the head." (By what principle, I wonder, did they choose the method of hanging?)
It makes no sense now to talk about the cruelty of the Cossacks, the time itself was cruel, foreigners wrote that people in Muscovy are killed more often than dogs - on the streets, in quarrels and fights; torture was legalized by the state, for which there were professional executioners in every city, executions and punishments were carried out in public, and what can we say about those unfortunate ones mutilated by the Cossacks, if women in those days were buried alive in the ground for treason. Are we to judge those times with our morals ...
Then Razin went down the Volga, stopped at Tsaritsyn. The governor of the city ordered to shoot at the thieves' plows, but not a single gun fired- gunpowder came out fuse. Following this, Captain Razin appeared to the stunned governor, muttering something about evil spirits, and demanded an anvil, furs and blacksmith equipment. Which was immediately provided. Near the Black Yar, Razin frolic again and flogged the governor of this city, who met on the way, putting him on the shore without pants after the execution. This, too, was not a Peasant War, everything that happened was pure robbery, only Razin’s actions differed from the previous robbers in a certain reckless scope and completely unthinkable arrogance.
By sea, the Razintsy approached the Yaitsky town. Leaving the plows and changing clothes, forty people, led by the ataman himself, knocked on the gates of the town, asking to be allowed into the church to pray. The gates were open, and the "pilgrims" cut the guards. Razintsy entered the town.
The streltsy garrison stationed in the Yaitsky town did not have time to resist or did not dare. However, Yatsyn - the head of the archery and his comrades conceived something against Razin. The ataman, who found out about this, punished them. They gathered a garrison in the square, and one of the archers (his name was Chikmaz) began to chop off the heads of his yesterday's comrades. The picture, I think, was incomparable: having chopped off 170 heads in two hours, Chikmaz must have been heavily smeared, blood covered his entire body and face with a crust - it was summer, it was hot; the agonizing corpses were thrown into the pit. Some of the condemned archers fainted from horror, and dragged them to the chopping block, having fallen into unconsciousness. Stepan was sitting right there, watching and, apparently tired, announced to the surviving archers that, they say, I forgive you, you can stay with me, or you can go. Sagittarius thought for a day and foolishly went somewhere. The Cossacks, led by the ataman, caught up with them outside the city and chopped them down.
The sincere guy Chikmaz earned the trust of the ataman and stayed with him for a long time.
The Cossacks settled in the Yaik town; it was necessary to eat something, and in the fall Razin defeated the Tatars at the mouth of the Volga, who did not want to share good. A little later, he defeated a detachment of the sovereign's military men sent by the Astrakhan governor to catch the troublemakers. "Nothing to catch - we're not hiding." Razin conceived a campaign against Persia - for rich booty, and attributing this period to the Peasant War is simply stupid - what kind of Peasant War is this outside of Russia, and besides, without peasants - Razin's detachment almost entirely consisted of Cossacks. Razin wintered almost peacefully in the Yaitsky town, and the thought of cracking down on the boyars had not yet mastered him. True, ambassadors came to the town three times with an exhortation to stop the robbery. The first time they were released, the second time one of the ambassadors was killed by Razin himself, the third time the ambassadors were hanged. Tired, probably.
In 1667, according to the "Catalogue of Earthquakes of the Russian Empire", there were earthquakes of great strength in the city of Shamakhi. In recent years, historical works have appeared where this fact is given fundamental importance, and Razin's entire Caspian campaign, amazing in its scope and Cossack prowess, has been reduced to shameful looting. If we take into account the above fact about the earthquake, then the notorious looting is generally nonsense. Because the Cossacks appeared in those places a year later - in 1668, when the consequences of the earthquake were nullified, and because the Razintsy did not go far from the coast, fearing to be cut off from the plows, and Shamakhi is located a hundred kilometers from the coast. The tendency to humiliate the Russian national hero leads to the juggling of facts and outright absurdity. However, I can even help new interpreters of the history of the rebellion - in addition to the "Catalogue" there is a letter from a foreigner T. Brain, who lived in those years in Persia, which also mentions earthquakes - historians missed this letter, otherwise they would have danced with delight, - but it does not affect the essence of the matter - Persia was and remained the most powerful and fabulously rich state, and there is a lot of evidence that the cities in Persia flourished and did not lie in ruins, the richest markets worked, there was active trade with neighboring countries, and the Shah Abbas II paid for the work of a mercenary army. Yes, and T. Brain himself, who wrote about earthquakes, was not going to leave Persia, which means that it was not so scary.
So, Razin left the Yaitsky town for the Caspian Sea. The coast from Derbent to Baku was devastated. Surprisingly, foreigners, mostly Persians, joined the Cossack army. Razin communicated with them in their native language.
Having reached Reshat, Razin offered service to the Shah, which, by the way, is not customary in Soviet historical studies. Neither the leader of the Peasant War, nor the new Yermak - then Razin did not want to be a conqueror of lands for Muscovy. He asked for lands from the Shah, promising to serve faithfully; Agamir Osenov, a visiting Persian, mentioned Razin's personal meeting with the Shah. The Shah was playing for time - he clearly did not need such restless and arrogant neighbors, but it seemed impossible to destroy them. While the Razin Yesauls were negotiating with the Shah in Isfahan, Razin set a condition for the ruler of Reshat to pay the Cossacks 150 rubles a day and, in addition, feed them daily. That is, Razin practically imposed tribute on one of the Persian cities. And this is with two thousand people! What if there were ten thousand? The Cossacks, of course, did not allow them to count, therefore they ate and received money each for three. In addition, they had fun in the city, as best they could. In the end, the inhabitants of Reshat, tired of the Cossack drunkenness and lawlessness, caught them, insolent and drunk, by surprise and killed about four hundred people.
If history had stumbled here, the Shah would have had a hired Cossack army. She didn't stumble, fortunately.
Revenge was not long in coming. Leaving the ill-fated Rasht and arriving at Farabat, Razin asked to let the Cossacks into the city for trade. The ruler of Farabat believed the exhortations of the Cossacks in good intentions. They traded for five days, since before that they had looted a lot on the coast - they exchanged Persian good for Persian, on the sixth day Razin gave a sign - he touched his hat, and the holiday began: they massacred the whole city. The cruelty knew no bounds. Countless riches were transferred to plows, while the plows were upholstered in velvet and hung with silk sails. After Farabat, the Razintsy took Astrabat and, having plundered it, completely insolent, stood on the Miyan-Kale peninsula between Farabat and Astrabat - in the shah's forest reserve, where the shah's amusing yards. Two Persian cities were in worse condition than after the earthquake, I think, but Razin was not going to sail away - he strengthened the Cossack settlement and established trade - one Orthodox was exchanged for three Busurmans taken prisoner. The Shah hastily prepared for war.
In the spring, Razin's detachment spread to the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea - to the Trukhmen land. (Here, by the way, there were no earthquakes at all.) All the Turkmen camps that met on the coast were plundered, the Turkmen army was dispersed. From there, Razin returned to the west coast again, apparently, resentment for the massacre in Rasht did not allow the ataman to sleep. The Cossacks stood on Pig Island near Baku, plundered several villages near this city, but failed to calm down on their deeds. In June 1669, the Shah's fleet headed by the first commander of Persia, Meneda Khan, approached the Pig Island. The Persians, who had excellent weapons and fourfold numerical superiority, went to the Pig Island, as if on a holiday. With music. Khan even took his young son (and, according to legend, his daughter) with him, so that the children could enjoy the victory of the Persian army.
At first, everything turned out as Menedy Khan had planned: the Cossacks, at the sight of the approaching enemy, took a shameful flight. The Persians rejoiced. The pursuit was accompanied by the thunder of drums and trumpets. The Cossacks, as it turned out, did not even know how to control the plows - they barely moved, helplessly poking at each other. The Persians connected their ships with chains so that not a single Cossack plow could escape, and began to surround the Razintsy. Here the holiday began: unexpectedly, the Cossacks learned to manage, and moreover, unusually clearly and harmoniously, with their plows and turned towards the Persians. A cannon shot rang out from the central - Razin plow. The busa of Meneda Khan, marked by his own hoisted flag, caught fire - the core fell into the powder reserve, the Khan himself had to hastily move to another ship. But his burning bead began to sink and pulled all the other Persian ships tied with chains.
The Persians could not maneuver and therefore served as an excellent target. After a short and accurate shelling, the Cossacks began the direct extermination of the Persian army, which had fallen into terrible confusion. The entire army was destroyed in a short time. Khan, having lost his son Shebalda in the confusion of battle, left on three sandals. The Cossacks lost only a few dozen people killed. The news of the terrible defeat of the troops of Abbas II came to all the surrounding eastern countries, to the European powers.
The news also reached Moscow. And although the sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich sent an apology to Abbas II for the actions of the robbers, Muscovy clearly felt pride in his unreasonable subjects. The sovereign released the guilt to the Cossacks. "Forgive me, they say, just don't fool around anymore. They robbed you and sit still." It didn't work out nicely. It was impossible to stop.
Razin returned to the Don. From all over Russia, all the same oppressed and destitute were drawn to him, but also: thieves, murderers, rapists. Throughout the winter of 1669, Razin sent messengers to the hetman of the Right-Bank Ukraine, Petro Doroshenko, and the ataman of the Zaporizhia Army, Ivan Serko - he was looking for comrades for his plan. A little later, Stepan sent messengers to the disgraced Patriarch Nikon. If they all supported him - oh, Russia would have come apart at the seams, Moscow would have fallen ...
In May 1670, the Great Campaign began. Peasant War. Razin went to the Volga. Surrounding Tsaritsyn and leaving part of the army near him, Razin took up his usual business, in which he had not known defeat for a long time - he defeated the nomad camps of the Nogai Tatars. Returning after a hard battle to the walls of Tsaritsyn, Razin learned that the inhabitants of the city had opened the gates to their liberator, Father Stepan Timofeevich. The governor with a few people locked himself in the tower, from where the Razintsy, led by the ataman, who entered the city, smoked him out and drowned him the next day, at the request of the inhabitants of Tsaritsyn.
A detachment of archers with the head of Ivan Lopatin, sailing to the aid of Tsaritsyn, was defeated with the prowess characteristic of Razin, brilliance and cruelty: seven miles from the city, from behind a spit, Razin's boats unexpectedly surfaced towards the streltsy plows. The archers were about to rush to the shore, but there the cavalry sitting in ambush was waiting for them. Stunned, they rushed to Tsaritsyn, believing that the city had not yet been taken. Their horror was inconceivably great when cannons fired at them from the walls of the city in which they hoped to hide. Razintsy in all that massacre lost several people killed and wounded. From the archery detachment there were those who managed to surrender in time.
When I watched "Braveheart" with Mel Gibson, I felt sorry that we did not shoot such a film about Razin. And the charm would be that there is no need to invent anything about Razin - his whole life, all his military victories and human deeds and antics are delightfully interesting ...
Another detachment of archers under the leadership of Prince Lvov, sent by the Astrakhan governor, in which Razin's "charms" worked, as skillfully surrounded by Razin's troops as the previous detachment, surrendered to Razin without a fight.
The inhabitants of Cherny Yar themselves let the chieftain in, Kamyshin was taken by deceit. Razin went down the Volga so as not to leave Astrakhan in the rear.
The Astrakhan fortress was one of the best in Europe. Foreign masters said that she would stand against any army. Stone Kremlin: ten towers, behind them is the White City with stone walls up to ten sazhens in height, behind it is an earthen rampart with a wooden wall on it. The rampart has a deep ditch. There were five hundred cannons on three fortress walls!
With the governor of Astrakhan - Prozorovsky - Razin personally climbed a high fortress tower with a flat top - a peal. They were talking about something. The conversation came down to the fact that Razin gently pushed Prozorovsky, who was standing at the edge of the rumble. Going downstairs, Razin ordered his two sons to be hanged by their feet.
In total, in Astrakhan, by decision of the townspeople and the Cossack circle, 66 people were executed. Do you think a lot?
There was once a TV show where a bearded historian spoke in a penetrating voice about the unthinkable cruelty of the Razintsy and cited the following story as an example: when the Razin squalor entered Astrakhan, the governor, clerks, many archers locked themselves in the church. After fruitless persuasion to let them in, the Razintsy began to shoot at the carved gate - into the inside of the church, and with an accidental shot they killed a one and a half year old child in his mother's arms. Negligent mother, it is worth noting. There was nothing to climb into the church, the Cossacks did not eat babies, and there is not a single case when Razin would order the execution of women or children. From inside the church, by the way, they also shot, and there was no time for the Razints to mark.
Moreover, I dare to assert that Razin's atrocity, his irreconcilable cruelty in dealing with boyars, princes and clerks is a fabrication and a bluff. Representatives of the "white bone" Razin pardoned as often as he executed. Only obvious enemies were destroyed: in 1667 a caravan on the Volga was robbed - the patriarchal son of the boyar Lazunka Zhidovin was not touched and was even accepted into the detachment along with 160 yaryzhki; they took the Yaitsky town - the governor is safe and sound; in 1670, Razin stood up in a war against Boyar Rus - all the seed seems to have to be exterminated by the boyars, but no - they were not zealous in executions; they took Tsaritsyn - and the children of the boyars and the nephew of the voivode, captured - were spared, and, as reported in a historical document, "in the initial people in Tsaritsyn - on his Stepanov's order - the son of the boyars Ivashka Kuzmin ... and the cathedral priest Andrey"; Lopatin's archery detachment was defeated - over Lopatin himself, who was taken prisoner alive, Razin "ordered to abuse in every possible way, and pricked, and put him in the water," however, at the request of the archers who surrendered, they spared the half-head. But he participated in the battle against the Razintsy. In mercy to the vanquished - the greatness of a warrior, is not it? We follow further: in the Black Yar, the governor was spared; in the detachment of Prince Lvov, who surrendered to Razin near Cherny Yar, there were 80 officers and nobles who tried to escape, and this is how the participant in the events described it - the Dutch officer Fabricius, who was then under Prince Lvov: "... and there will be a massacre, yes Stenka Razin immediately gave the order not to kill any more officers, because among them, surely, there are still good people, such people should be spared. ." On the circle, Razin beats his forehead in front of the Cossacks, so that Prince Lvov would be spared. By decision of the circle, the prince and most of the officers were spared. In Astrakhan, Razin forbade touching church treasures and ordered to take care of Metropolitan Joseph and other spiritual shepherds. Before that, however, one of the priests, by order of Razin, was cut off his arm and leg, and the other was put in the water. (They stuffed stones into a bag and, putting a man in a bag, threw them into the river.) But these priests behaved inappropriately - began to denounce Razin, as if he was engaged in ungodly deeds. It was necessary to show the priests the lack of interest in such sermons, so that they would not embarrass the people. Razin "led the inhabitants of Astrakhan to the cross" - that is, the Astrakhans swore allegiance to him in order to "stand for the great sovereign" and "serve" Razin. And so that no one would have any doubts about Stepan Razin's loyalty to the sovereign and the church, Razin put the pseudo-tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich and the pseudo-patriarch Nikon on his planes, their names fit into the deeds of the predestination ... From Astrakhan, Razin, at the head of his army increasing every day, began to rise up the Volga, Samara and Saratov were taken, where, as in many other cities taken by the Razintsy, only a few were executed, according to the verdict of the townspeople. There were no mass bloodlettings, those who could not be killed were killed.
Lawlessness and drunkenness of the Cossacks is also a moot point. Without a doubt, it was difficult to reason with several thousand people, among whom there were many convicts, but: after the capture of the next city and the holiday that followed this event, from the next day Razin forbade drunkenness. For the theft, a Cossack caught was killed on the spot. According to the testimony of foreigners who were in Astrakhan during the uprising, fornication was the most serious crime among the Razintsy, and violence was severely punished. In the same Astrakhan, Razin forbade the use of swear words on the streets, what kind of drunkenness is there. Even the hater of Razin Kostomarov, noting that his army "was made up of fugitive thieves," says that the slightest disobedience was punished by death, that is, discipline reigned in Razin's army, comparable only to the discipline of the Tatar-Mongol army.
In early September, Razin approached Simbirsk. The tsarist militia under the command of Prince Yuri Borotyansky, which was going to help the city, was overturned. The Simbirsk prison was taken, the Razintsy besieged the small Simbirsk city, where the governor sat down with many people to death. During September, Razin carried out several brutal assaults, the ataman himself repeatedly went along with the Cossacks to the walls of Simbirsk, appearing in the most dangerous places.
In a short time, Razin was subject to the entire Simbirsk district.
Razin was in control of the entire lower Volga - the largest cities: Astrakhan, Cherny Yar, Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Samara, Simbirsk should be taken any day; half the way to Moscow was completed, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, where Razin intended to spend the winter, Murom and Ryazan remained.
Charming letters and Razin's envoys went in all directions of Russia. Razin sent letters to Kazan and Sviyazhsk, written in Russian and Tatar. Razin's envoys appeared twice in Moscow, walked among the people, admonishing the common people to honor the intercessor Stepan Timofeevich - to meet with bread and salt.
Trouble spread throughout Russia. Charming letters appeared even in the Karelian and Izhora lands, near the Svei border. Razin's messengers reached the Little Russian lands, to Poltava.
Even from Tsaritsyn, Razin began to send out his chieftains, so that they would go their own ways in Russia - to Moscow.
By mid-autumn 1670, when Razin commanded over 60,000 people, the rebellion assumed unheard-of proportions.
Only atamans moved through outlying towns: Stepan Razin's brother, Frol, went to Korotoyak; the named brother of Sepan - Lesko Cherkashenin climbed the Northern Donets, Tsarev-Borisov, Mayatsk, Zmiev, Chuguev were taken. Another Razin ataman, Frol Minaev, ascended the Don with the assistance of Colonel Dzinkovsky, who took the side of the rebels, took Ostrogozhsk and went to Voronezh.
Other chieftains sent from near Saratov and Simbirsk captured Alatyr, Kurmysh, Yadrin, Saransk, Kerensk, Penza and many other cities in a short time. The rebels approached Nizhny Novgorod and laid siege to Tambov. Rebels appeared near Tula and Suzdal, Kolomna and Yaroslavl. Unzha was taken to the northeast of Moscow, the rebels were moving towards Kostroma.
Razin's possessions by October 1670 exceeded the size of any European power. Under the name of Razin there were vast territories: the entire Volga, the entire Trans-Volga region, about 20 cities in Mesopotamia, part of Sloboda Ukraine, tens of kilometers north of Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod, behind the back of the uprising lay the safe Urals ...
It was no longer a riot. It was an invasion. European newspapers wrote about the horrors in Muscovy: "The Moscow General Dolgoruky, sent against the rebels, demands an army of one hundred thousand, otherwise he does not dare to show himself in front of the enemy."
Moscow shook. An all-Russian noble militia was hastily created. The church anathematized Stepan Razin.
And what happened was what trembling Moscow prayed for: in early October, Razin's army, standing near Simbirsk, was dispersed. The muzhik turned out to be unfit for war and faltered at the first hard onslaught. The main strength and hope of Razin - the Cossack backbone, professional soldiers who followed Razin from Persia - was destroyed. Razin himself, under whom a horse was killed in battle, wounded by a shot squeaked in the leg and with a cut saber in his head, with a few people hastily returned to the Don: while the rebellion was blooming in Russia, urgently assemble a new Cossack militia - they shook Persia with two thousand, is there really no several thousand who want to drag boyar Russia by the beard!
Not found. It was agony: Razin rushed around the Don for half a year, the Cossacks did not follow him. The year 1671 has come. Razin was waiting for spring to climb the Volga again with several hundred people, where Astrakhan and Tsaritsyn still stood under his, Razin, name, where, in the interfluve of the Oka and Volga, Razin atamans in agony held the conquered lands, where the People were still raging.
And there was no mercy for the people from the governor. Cities wrested from the uprising were marked with great blood. NEVER, anathematized for ungodly deeds and cruelty, Razin did not arrange such horror that the royal governors blessed by the church did. A foreigner, an eyewitness to the suppression of the uprising of Stepan Razin, wrote: “It was terrible to look at Arzamas, its suburbs seemed like a complete hell, gallows stood everywhere ... scattered heads lay scattered and smoked with fresh blood, stakes stuck out here, on which criminals were tormented and often were alive on three days of indescribable suffering." Only in Arzamas, on the orders of the governor Yuri Dolgoruky, 11 thousand people were executed! And remember that in every city captured by Razin, only the governor and several of his henchmen were executed - a few! Remember the archery regiments and the officers in command of them, whom Razin pardoned from time to time.
But in Astrakhan, Razin executed as many as 66 people, you say. Do you know what happened in Astrakhan when it was recaptured from the rebels? The Dutchman Ludwig Fabricius, who was then in the city, recalls that the new voivode Odoevsky "ordered to arrest all Astrakhan residents ... he raged to the point of horror: the voivode ordered many to be quartered alive, someone to be burned alive, someone to cut out his tongue from his throat, someone to be buried alive in land. And so they did both with the guilty and the innocent. In the end, when there were few people left, he ordered the whole city to be demolished. "
Where is that bearded historian who whined about Razin's cruelty? If only he had learned to read books, if he had no conscience.
Where are those churchmen who for 300 years anathematized the Russian national hero Stepan Razin and his chieftains - have you forgotten the governor, or what? And until now, with those governors, share one well-fed table, and send an anathema wherever you go ... And these are our spiritual shepherds ... m ... ringing.
Razin was captured on April 13, 1671 - in the town of Kagalnik built by Razin, the Cossacks themselves, led by Stepan's godfather, Kornila Yakovlev, captured.
On June 4, 1671 Razin Stepan and his brother Frol were brought to Moscow. After the terrible two days of torture endured by Razin with inhuman stamina, his quartered on Red Square. When Razin had already cut off his arm and leg, his brother Frol became cowardly and shouted to avoid execution that he would reveal to the sovereign secret... Razin, tortured for two days, with a severed arm and leg, shouted to his brother:
Shut up, dog!
Razin's rebellion, which scattered like wild flowers and burning brands across Russia, was trampled on by the governors for a long time.
The last stronghold of the fleeing Razintsy - the Solovetsky Monastery - fell only in 1676. The same monastery where young Razin went on a pilgrimage ...
Like this. But this is only the outer layer of events. The racial (and, in part, occult) background, we will analyze in the second part of the article.
Stepan Timofeevich Razin was born in 1630, as we know from reading the works of Streis, a traveler from the Netherlands. They had several meetings. In 1670, the writer noted in his work that his interlocutor was in his fifth decade. We will learn a lot of interesting things about this further from the article.
Speculation regarding his birth
The coast of the Don was the first house that Stepan Timofeevich Razin had. Curriculum vitae does not provide more accurate data. There is a version that is the most reliable and says that he was born in the Zimoveyskaya village. Now this land has been given the name Pugachevskaya.
Some researchers have refuted this version. There are still many speculations around the birthplace of Stepan Timofeevich Razin. His biography may vary with different authors. So, some argue that he was born in Cherkassk, which is now in the Rostov region. So was Razin Stepan Timofeevich really from the family of Circassian sultans? Folklore is different.
A number of other settlements, such as Esaulovsky or Kagalnitsky, are also called his birthplace. However, Cherkassk is called its homeland.
Life
Stepan Timofeevich Razin attracted the attention of many people for a long time. Folklore and the beginnings of Russian cinema were formed around his personality. In the West, Stenka became the first Russian on whom a thesis was defended just a few years after his death.
Razin Stepan Timofeevich died before reaching old age. Around 1630-1671 lived and performed his deeds. He and his family became the subject of folk writings, in which new details were introduced that made him almost a fairy-tale character.
Before the uprising happened
Quite interesting is Timofeevich. The main dates of his life begin in 1652. At that time, he was an ataman and, by virtue of his powers, represented the Don warriors. Razin Stepan Timofeevich - a Cossack, who already then had rich experience in military affairs and was respected by his brothers in arms. Even in his early years, he already had the makings of a leader.
Stepan Timofeevich Razin fought in the company of his older brother Ivan as part of the Don army. The year 1661 is significant in that negotiations were then held with the Kalmyks. The warrior's companion was Fedor Budan, as well as Cossacks from the Don and Zaporozhye. The establishment of peace and common steps to expel the Tatars and Nogays from the Crimea were discussed.
The year 1663 is recorded in the annals as the moment when Razin Stepan Timofeevich led the Don and Kalmyks to the warriors from the Crimea, who were near Perekop.
In 1665 Dolgorukov executed the ataman's brother. This happened when a conflict broke out, during which the soldiers wanted to go to the Don, despite the royal service. Stepan Timofeevich Razin was filled with a desire to take revenge on the prince, as well as on the whole entourage of the king. He also wanted to get a free and quiet life for his brothers who followed him. Razin Stepan Timofeevich began to hatch great ideas. was to become a model of a military and democratic structure for the entire Russian state.
During the uprising
He picked up his move. The reason for this can be called the aggravated social situation that prevailed on the lands of the Cossacks. Don was the epicenter of these processes. More and more fugitive peasants appeared in its vicinity. Such an influx can be explained in 1647. The people were in complete captivity, were bound hand and foot by the nobility.
Why is this person included in the list of "Great people of Russia"? Razin Stepan Timofeevich gave people the opportunity to breathe more freely, to become Cossacks, free warriors. At that time, everyone wanted to stop feeling like a draft force. And such an opportunity was given by Stepan Timofeevich Razin. The biography of the Don Cossack does not recall the large property or family ties that many other governors had. On the territory of the region, he lived on an equal footing with others. The term “smutty” Cossack was applied to him. He stood apart from the old-timers, felt affection for the common people, did not have significant property, did not boast of titles.
Who is Stepan Timofeevich Razin? This is both a hero and a robber. He was a savior for his loved ones and a natural disaster for those he attacked. Together with the naked, for the purpose of robbery, he went to the Volga. At that time, he needed fame and material resources. The richer and more eminent Cossacks sponsored these campaigns with the condition of the subsequent division of the loot. All armies - Yaik, Don and Terek - were involved in these operations.
Razin Stepan Timofeevich from the family of Egyptian sultans became the center around which the poor gathered, thanks to which they could feel important and necessary people, being an integral part of the Cossack army.
The mass of the people grew rapidly and became more and more visible thanks to the fugitive serfs who wanted to join the uprising.
1667 was the moment when Razin led the Cossacks. In the spring, about 700 soldiers gathered for the Volga-Don perevoloka. New rebels were added, so there were already two thousand people. They passed near the Volga and Yaik. The goal was to express disagreement with the policy of the government of Moscow and blockade the trade route that passed through the river. The tsar's governors answered the call and a clash ensued.
The growth of the power of the Cossacks
Stepan Timofeevich Razin devoted the years of his life to many campaigns, and this one was one of the most important. It began in May 1667. His army went to the Volga. Near Tsaritsyn was the fleet of Shorin, the guest of the country, as well as other leaders of the merchant class. Patriarch Iosaph also placed several of his ships here, which he later regretted. Stenka with the robbers attacked the ships, plundered them, committed a massacre against the clerks and heads of the courts.
By and large, the Cossacks were often engaged in robberies. However, later a simple theft turned into an uprising, they opposed the government, defeated the archers and took the Yaitsky town. The winter was spent in the territory of Yaik. When 1668 began, the waters of the Caspian Sea became a new battlefield. There were more and more Don Cossacks, Cherkasy and residents from other districts of Russia. There was a battle against the Shah's forces near Reshta, the city of the Persians.
It was a tough fight that ended in negotiations. During this process, Shah Suleiman was visited by the messenger of the Tsar of Russia and reported that the thieves' detachments were going to sea. The Persians were called upon to defeat the Razintsy. Then the negotiations broke off. The Cossacks were put in chains. One of them died from being bullied by dogs. The rebels had no choice but to take Farabat and stay there for the winter, fenced off from the enemy troops.
Legendary Events
The year 1669 came, several fights were held on the territory of the Trukhmensky lands. There, the life of a friend of Razin, a Cossack nicknamed Krivoy, was interrupted. When the army got to Skin Island, they were attacked by the Shah's sailors, commanded by Mamed Khan. They fought not for life, but for death.
The enemy linked his fleet with a chain and surrounded the Don army, but the strategy did not justify itself. The enemy flagship sank. Then the Razintsy dealt with the rest of the fleet. They managed to capture the daughter and son of the commander of the Persian naval forces.
Peasants' War
A new decade has arrived. As always, hostilities began in the spring of 1670. Again made a trip to the Volga. Now there was not just a robbery, but a real uprising, which was positioned precisely under such a status. Everyone who wanted freedom and freedom was called by Razin to serve.
For the purposes of the ataman, there was no overthrow of the king, but he wanted to overcome the system of that time, which made cattle out of peasants. It was planned to eliminate the higher ranks, which personified the clerks, governors and churchmen, who allegedly betrayed the royal power. A rumor was spread about the presence of Tsarevich Alexei among the Razintsy, who had actually been dead since January.
They also claimed to have power over life. In fact, he simply went into exile. Razintsy occupied fortresses and cities, introduced their device there, cracked down on local rulers, and destroyed documents. If they came across a merchant on the Volga, they grabbed him and robbed him.
“A letter from Stepan Timofeevich, from Razin” - this was the title at that time of the document that was sent to the mob. It was proposed to serve God and the state, as well as to support the army and its leader, to extradite all traitors and people who drink blood from the people. It was necessary to come to the council to the Cossacks.
The peasants revolted en masse and accompanied the ataman during his Volga campaign. The local areas were recently enslaved and ordinary people did not agree to put up with imprisonment. The battles were conducted under the leadership of the Cossack commanders of these places. The fighting was started by the Mari, Tatars, Chuvashs and Mordovians.
Tsaritsyn was captured, as well as Samara, they took Astrakhan, subjugated Saratov and other fortresses. In the autumn of 1670, the siege operation near Simbirsk ended in failure. The king sent an army of 60 thousand people to these places in order to suppress the popular outburst. Razintsy were defeated as a result of the battle near Simbirsk.
The governor then was Yuri Baryatinsky. Razin himself was seriously wounded, trusted people took him to the Don. For some time, his refuge was the Kagalitsky town. It was from there that he moved out with the campaign a year earlier. The ataman was still cherishing his plans to raise new troops. The situation escalated, and the anger of the king was no longer an illusory threat. The military chieftain Yakovlev Kornila and other Cossacks betrayed their leader, surrendering him on April 13, 1671 during the assault on Kagalitsky. Razin was given to Russian troops.
Captivity and death
The month of April 1671 was remembered for the fact that the ataman and brother Frolka, who was younger than him, found themselves in the hands of the royal henchmen. They were taken prisoner. They were received by Grigory Kosogov, the steward, and Andrey Bogdanov, the clerk.
The rebels were brought to Moscow in the middle of June and brutally tortured. In the same month, Stepan was brought to the scaffold and quartered. The whole area was a witness to this. The sentence was long. The rebel listened with calmness. His parting gesture was a bow before the church. The executioner first cut off his right arm to the elbow. Then the left leg was cut off at the knee, and finally the head. Before Stepan was beheaded, his brother Frol tried to beg for pardon, but he got only a small delay in death. He was executed in the same place and in the same way.
The military operations in the Volga region did not end there. Vasily Us and Fyodor Sheludyaka became the leaders of the Cossacks. Astrakhan was taken from the Razintsy by government troops only in November 1671. It was a particularly vicious fight that ended the standoff.
Attention from abroad
European politicians closely watched Razin's actions. The most important trade routes were at stake in this battle. They Europe contacted with Persia and Russia. At that time, insurgent battles took place in parallel on the territory of Germany, England and the Netherlands. In these countries, articles and books about the adventures of the ataman were published. Some had fantastic details along with important data.
Foreigners watched as the Cossack was brought to the capital as a prisoner and executed. It was especially beneficial for the king to show that power was completely in his hands, and no one could shake it. Especially some bandit, a native of the poor.
Although the victory was not yet final, nevertheless, the death of the leader of the Cossacks looked very impressive. One of the literary works on this subject is "Three Journeys" written by Jan Streis. He witnessed the uprising, visited the territory controlled by Razin. To create this story, we used our own observations and materials that the writer learned from information provided by other authors.
Scientific and literary works
In 1674, within the walls of the Wittenberg Institute, historians defended a work that told about the exploits of the ataman. The work was reprinted many times in the 17th and 18th centuries, Pushkin showed great interest in it.
Subsequently, many legends began to be composed about the rebel hero. For example, we can read about him in the work "How Stepan Timofeevich Razin left the prison."
Folk songs were composed about the ataman in Russia. In some, he was idealized as a hero who won epic battles. Sometimes the image was identified with Ermak Timofeevich, another famous Cossack who conquered Siberia. There are more accurate works that dryly present documentary facts, biography and historical events.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin dedicated three of his works to Razin. D.M. also wrote about him. Sadovnikov. In 1908, the first Russian-made feature film appeared. It was called the "Ponizovaya Freemen". Gilyarovsky V.A. wrote the poem "Stenka Razin".
Any revolutionary movement needs a strong leader who can cast aside fear and lead large masses. Against the backdrop of general enslavement, people needed a person who could gather and organize them in order to achieve common freedom. Stepan Razin made the Cossacks a real family, a single force that fought for its rights. Just like that, fearless and purposeful, he comes to us from the pages of history. Even on his deathbed, he showed no sign of fear and held to his views until his last breath. It was these traits and actions that made him a significant historical figure and a hero of folklore.
Who is Stepan Razin? A brief biography of this historical figure is considered in the school curriculum. Let's analyze some interesting facts from his life.
Important
What is interesting about the biography of Stepan Razin? A brief summary of the main stages of the life of this person testifies to the connection with the life of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.
At that time there was an increase in feudal oppression. Despite the king's quiet disposition and his ability to listen to his subordinates, uprisings and riots periodically arose in the country.
Cathedral code
After its approval, serfdom became the basis of the Russian economy, any rebellions were brutally suppressed by the authorities. The term for searching for runaway peasants was increased from 5 to 15 years, serfdom turned into a hereditary state.
Stepan Razin, whose biography will be discussed below, led the rebellion, which was called the peasant war.
Portrait of Stepan Razin
The Russian historian V. I. Buganov, who has been collecting information about Stepan Razin for a long time, based himself on some of the surviving documents that were published by the Romanovs, as well as on information that was preserved far from the Volga. Who is he - Stepan Razin? A short biography for schoolchildren offered in a history textbook is limited to only a minimal amount of information. It is difficult for the guys to draw up a true portrait of the leader of the rebellious movement based on these facts.
Family Information
Stepan Timofeevich Razin was born in 1630. His brief biography contains information that his father was a noble and wealthy Cossack Timothy Razin. The village of Zimoveyskaya, the possible birthplace of Stepan, was first mentioned at the end of the 18th century by the historian A.I. Rigelman. The domestic historian Popov suggested that Cherkassk was the birthplace of Stepan Razin, because this city was repeatedly mentioned in folk traditions of the 17th century.
Characteristic
The biography of Stepan Razin contains information that the ataman of the Cossack army Kornil Yakovlev became his godfather. Thanks to the Cossack origin, Stepan from childhood occupied a special place among the Don foremen, had certain privileges.
In 1661, he took an active part in negotiations with the Kalmyks as an interpreter, having excellent knowledge of the Tatar and Kalmyk languages.
The biography of Stepan Razin contains the fact that by 1662 he became the commander of the Cossack army, which went on a campaign against the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. At that point in time, Stepan Razin had already managed to make two pilgrimages to the Solovetsky Monastery, and also three times to become the Don ambassador to Moscow. In 1663 he took part in a military campaign against the Crimean Tatars near Perekop.
The biography of Stepan Razin contains many interesting points. For example, historians note his genuine authority among the Don Cossacks, they allocate enormous energy, rebellious disposition. Many historical descriptions speak of the arrogant expression on Razin's face, his gravity and stateliness. The Cossacks called him "father", they were ready to kneel before him during the conversation, demonstrating respect and honor in this way.
Reliable information about whether he had a family, the biography of Stepan Razin does not contain. There is information that the children of the ataman lived in the Kagalnitsky town.
Predatory campaigns
The younger brother Frol and older brother Ivan also became Cossack leaders. It was after the execution of the elder Ivan, carried out on the orders of the governor Yuri Dolgorukov, that Stepan began to hatch a plan of cruel revenge on the tsar's administration. Razin decides on a free and prosperous life for his Cossacks, building a military-democratic system.
As a manifestation of disobedience to the tsarist government, Razin, together with the Cossack army, went on a predatory campaign to Persia and the lower Volga (1667-1669). His team robbed a trade caravan, blocked the movement of merchants towards the Volga. As a result, the Cossack homeless managed to free some of the exiles, avoiding a collision with a detachment of soldiers.
Razin at that time settled near the Don, in the Kagalnitsky town. Whites and Cossacks began to come to him from all over, forming a powerful rebel army. The attempts of the tsarist government to disperse the recalcitrant Cossacks were unsuccessful, and the personality of Stepan Razin himself was overgrown with real legends.
Razintsy, who acted under the banner of war, naively thought about how to protect Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich from the Moscow boyars. For example, in one of the letters, the chieftain wrote that his army was coming from the Don to help the sovereign in order to protect him from traitors.
Expressing hatred for the authorities, the Razintsy were ready to give their lives for the Russian Tsar.
Conclusion
In 1670, an open uprising of the Cossack army began. Together with his associates, Razin sent "charming" letters, urging him to join the ranks of his freedom-loving army.
Ataman never talked about the overthrow of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but he declared a real war on the clerks, governors, representatives of the Russian church. The Razintsy gradually introduced the Cossack army into the cities, destroyed the representatives of the authorities, established their own rules there. Merchants trying to cross the Volga were detained and robbed.
The Volga region was engulfed by mass uprisings. As leaders were not only the Razin Cossacks, but also runaway peasants, Chuvashs, Maris, Mordovians. Among the cities captured by the rebels were Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan.
In the autumn of 1670, Razin met with serious resistance during a campaign against Simbirsk. The ataman was wounded, he was forced to retreat to the Don along with his army.
At the beginning of 1671, serious contradictions began to arise within the army. As a result, the authority of the ataman decreased, and a new leader appeared in his place - Yakovlev.
In the spring of the same year, together with his brother Frol, Stepan was taken prisoner and handed over to government authorities. Despite his hopeless situation, Razin retained his dignity. His execution was scheduled for June 2.
Since the tsar was afraid of serious unrest on the part of the Cossack army, the entire Bolotnaya Square, where the public execution took place, was cordoned off by several rows of people who were infinitely devoted to the tsar.
Detachments of government troops were also located at all intersections. Razin calmly listened to the entire sentence, then turned towards the church, bowed, asked for forgiveness from the people who had gathered in the square.
The executioner first cut off his arm to the elbow, and then the leg to the knee, then Razin lost his head. The execution of Frol, scheduled for the same time as Stepan, was postponed. He received his life in exchange for telling the authorities about the places where Stepan Razin hid his treasures.
The authorities failed to find the treasure, so in 1676 Flor was executed. In many Russian songs, Razin is presented as the ideal Cossack leader. Legends about the Razin treasures are passed down from generation to generation. For example, there is information that the chieftain hid his treasures in a cave near the village of Dobrinka.
The execution of the Cossack ataman did not bring peace and tranquility to the royal family. In the Volga region and on the Volga, peasant and Cossack wars continued after the death of Razin. The rebels managed to hold Astrakhan until the autumn of 1671. The Romanovs made great efforts to find and destroy the documents of the rebels.
(if you need short a summary of the events of the Razin uprising, read the article " Razin's Movement" from the Textbook of Russian History by Academician S. F. Platonov)
The conditions that prepared the Razin rebellion
In 1670-1671 Russia was shaken by the terrible revolt of Stepan Razin. The prolonged struggle with Poland for Little Russia weakened the forces of the Muscovite state in its other outskirts and gave freedom to freemen and bands of robbers. They especially intensified on the Volga, where free Cossack gangs, which were replenished by hunters from the Don, had long raged. Burdensome taxes, duties and growing serfdom with the oppression of governors and officials caused the escape of taxable people. The most energetic fled to the Cossacks on the Don, which did not betray the fugitives. These fugitives on the Don made up for the most part the poor part of the Cossacks, the so-called gout. It was from the Don that the uprising of Stenka Razin began. After the Andrusov Treaty, which left Zadneprovskaya Ukraine to the Poles, the resettlement of Little Russian Cossacks from there to the Muscovite state intensified. Many of them went to the Don, and there these Cherkasy or "Khokhlachi" significantly increased the number of smuts. For the restless freemen, who were thirsty for prey at that time, the main exit to the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov and the Black Sea was difficult, where the Turkish fortifications, the Tatars and the homely Cossacks, who acted on the orders of Moscow, did not want to bring the revenge of the Turks and Tatars to their southern Ukraine, blocked the road. The Donskaya golyt, whose ataman Razin then acted as, for the extraction of zipuns, the Volga was left, from which it was possible to go to the Caspian Sea; and the inhabited Persian and Caucasian shores were less protected than the Turkish ones on the Black Sea.
Stepan Razin. English engraving of the 17th century
By the spring of 1667, there was a great movement on the Don among the squalor from the tide from the southwestern Ukraine of runaway serfs and peasants; the latter arrived with their wives and children and thereby increased the food shortage that was already here. As usually happens in such cases, the agitated elements waited only for a suitable leader to gather around him and go where he indicated. Such a leader appeared in the person of the Don Cossack Stenka Razin.
Personality of Stepan Razin
According to some foreign news, Razin was guided by a sense of revenge that arose as a result of the fact that his brother, who served in Ukraine in the army of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, was sentenced by this governor to hang for his willful departure. But there is not a word about this case in Russian sources. Some of them report that Razin was once a messenger from the Don army to the Kalmyks with an invitation to go together against the Crimeans and that he later visited Moscow, from where he went on a pilgrimage to Solovki. By all indications, this is a man no longer young, experienced, with an average height, distinguished by an athletic build and indestructible health. Possessing at the same time remarkable abilities, resourcefulness, audacity and energy, Razin had precisely those qualities that most captivate a rude, senseless crowd, and having become at its head, and to its greatest pleasure, he did not hesitate to unbridle his instincts of a predatory beast, to show bloodthirsty ferocity and so strike the imagination of ordinary people that it made a national hero out of a daring Cossack-robber. Of course, the main reason for such fame was the fact that Razin managed to present himself as a friend of the common people and an enemy of the unloved boyar and noble class; the people saw in him a living protest against serfdom and all sorts of bureaucratic untruths.
Razin's performance from the Don (1667)
So in the spring of 1667, Stepan Razin gathered a gang of gouts and tried to first go on plows to the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. The military ataman at that time was Kornilo Yakovlev, also a remarkable man; the homely Cossacks of the Cherkasy town led by him, who did not want to invite the revenge of the Azov Turks and Tatars, detained the gang in the lower reaches of the Don. Then the Razintsy turned back and rowed up. The military authorities sent a chase after her; but the thieves' Cossacks managed to get to those places where the Don approaches the Volga; having plundered the surrounding towns and oncoming merchants, they camped on the high hillocks between Panshin and Kachalinsky towns, protected by high hollow water. In Panshin, Razin forced the local ataman to supply them with weapons, gunpowder, lead and other supplies. Here holocausts from various Don towns began to approach them, so that Razin's gang already numbered up to 1,000 people. The nearest city on the Volga was Tsaritsyn. Kornilo Yakovlev hastened to notify the Tsaritsyno governor Andrey Unkovsky about the campaign of the thieves' Cossacks up the Don and about Razin's clear intention to cross to the Volga. Unkovsky first sent several archers to Panshin to find out about these Cossacks, then he sent a cathedral priest and a monastery elder to them to convince them to leave behind theft and return to their places; but the messengers did not reach the thieves' camp for big water, but brought only news from Panshin that Razin's Cossacks were going to go to the Caspian Sea, settle in the Yaitsky town and from there make a raid on the Tarchovsky shamkhal Surkay. Meanwhile, all these cases were reported from Tsaritsyn to Moscow and Astrakhan with a request to send military men as reinforcements so that a search could be made over Razin's thieves. From Moscow went to the cities of the Volga, mainly to Astrakhan, as well as to the Terek royal letters, so that the governors "lived with great care from the thieves' Cossacks", so that "every measure was taken about them", so that on the Volga and on its tributaries they would not be given to steal, not to miss them in the sea and to repair them. About everything that concerned Razin, the governors should immediately write to the great sovereign and boyar Prince Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov in the order of the Kazan Palace (where the middle and lower Volga regions were in charge) and report the news to each other. According to the Volga gangs and uchugs (fish factories), it was also ordered to live with great care.
Governors of Astrakhan Prince Ivan Andreevich Khilkov, Buturlin and Bezobrazov were replaced. Princes were appointed in their place: the boyar Iv. Sem. Prozorovsky, stewards Mikh. Sem. Prozorovsky and Sem. Iv. Lvov. In the types of struggle against Razin, reinforcements were sent with them from four streltsy orders and a certain number of soldiers with cannons and live ammunition; still servicemen on foot were ordered to go from Simbirsk and other cities of the Saransk-Simbirsk border line, from Samara and Saratov.
But while letters were being written and military measures were being slowly carried out, the thieves' Cossacks were already doing their job.
The first robberies of Razin on the Volga and Yaik (1667)
Razin went with his gang to the Volga, and his first feat was an attack on a large ship caravan that was sailing to Astrakhan with exiles and state-owned bread; in addition to state-owned planes, there were planes of the patriarch, the famous Moscow guest Shorin, and some other private individuals. The caravan was accompanied by a streltsy detachment. But the archers did not put up any resistance to the more numerous Cossacks and betrayed their chief, whom Razin ordered to be killed. Chopped up or hanged Shorinsky clerk and other shipowners. The exiles were released. Razin announced that he was going against the boyars and the rich for the poor and ordinary people. Streltsy and laborers or yaryzhnye entered his gang. Having thus increased his strength and taking away all the weapons and food supplies that were on the caravan, Razin sailed down the Volga. When the Cossacks caught up with Tsaritsyn, guns were brought from the city on them, but for some reason none of them fired; a legend immediately arose that Razin managed to speak a weapon, so that neither a saber nor a squeaker would take it. The voivode Unkovsky, frightened by this, did not have time to refuse when the ataman sent his captain to him demanding blacksmith supplies. Then Razin, wasting no time, sailed on his plows past the Black Yar, entered Buzan, one of the branches of the Volga, and, bypassing Astrakhan, entered the Caspian Sea near Krasny Yar. Without touching this city, Razin disappeared into the labyrinth of coastal islands; then, heading to the northeast, he entered the mouth of the Yaik and captured the poorly guarded Yaitsky town, where he already had like-minded people. Dressed up from Astrakhan, the Streltsy garrison did not resist here either; part of him stuck to the Cossack gang. Razin's people chopped off the heads of the chiefs; those archers who did not want to stay and were released to Astrakhan, then, overtaken by the Cossacks sent in pursuit, were subjected to a barbaric beating; however, some of them managed to hide in the reeds. In general, Razin and his comrades from the very beginning showed themselves to be wild, bloodthirsty monsters, for whom there were no human and Christian rules or laws.
Having settled in the Yaitsky town, the thieves' Cossacks from there made a predatory raid to the mouths of the Volga and Terek, destroyed the uluses of the Edisan Tatars, plundered several ships at sea and, returning with booty, entered into a bargain with neighboring Kalmyks, who exchanged cattle and other food supplies.
In vain, the Astrakhan governors, the former Khilkov and the new Prozorovsky, sent letters to Razin's gang admonishing them to refrain from theft and bring guilt, and also tried to act in military detachments and arm the Kalmyk horde against them. The Cossacks laughed at the admonitions, hanged and drowned the envoys; small military detachments returned beaten or molested the Cossacks; and the Kalmyk horde, having stood for some time near the Yaitsky town, moved away from it.
Razin's robberies in Persia (1668–1669)
Razin wintered in this town; and in March of the following year, 1668, he sailed with his gangs to the Persian shores. The news of his success attracted new bands of slanderers from the Don. So the ataman Seryozhka Krivoi made his way along the Volga with several hundred comrades, on Buzan he beat the streltsy detachment blocking his path and went to sea. Alyoshka convict with mounted Cossacks and Boba, a Cossack with Khokhlachs, came along Kuma. With the arrival of these reinforcements, Razin's forces increased to several thousand people, and with great ferocity he smashed the coastal Tatar cities and villages from Derbent and Baku to Rasht. Here Razin entered into negotiations, and even offered his services to the shah if he was given land for settlement. During these negotiations, the cunning Persians took advantage of the carelessness and drunkenness of the Cossacks and by an accidental attack inflicted a decent amount of damage on them. Razin sailed away from Rasht and, with the help of treachery, took out his anger on the gullible inhabitants of Farabant. They agreed to let the Cossacks in to conduct trade, and for several days this trade was carried out peacefully. Suddenly, Razin gave the agreed sign, namely, he straightened his hat on his head. The Cossacks, like animals, rushed at the inhabitants and committed a terrible massacre; captured a large crowd, plundered the city and burned the Shah's pleasure palaces. With huge booty and captives, Razin's gang settled on one island, set up a fortified town there and wintered in it. At their invitation, the Persians came here to exchange their relatives from captivity for Christian slaves. The Cossacks gave one Persian for three or four Christians. This shows what a large number of prisoners were sold to Persia by the Caucasian Tatars and Circassians, who plundered neighboring Christian regions. This release of many Christians from bondage gave Stenka Razin and his Cossacks a reason to boast that they were fighting Muslims for faith and freedom.
Stepan Razin. Painting by B. Kustodiev, 1918
In the spring of 1669, Razin's Cossacks raided the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea and plundered the Turkmen villages. In this raid they lost one of the most daring chieftains, Seryozhka Crooked. After that, the Razintsy fortified themselves on Pig Island and from here they made raids on neighboring shores in order to get food supplies. Meanwhile, back in the winter, the Persians began to gather an army and prepare ships against the Cossacks. In the summer, this army attacked Razin in the amount of almost 4,000 people, under the command of Meneda Khan. But it met with desperate resistance and was completely defeated; the khan fled with several ships; and his son and daughter were captured. It is not entirely clear why this daughter needed to participate in the campaign. Has she been captured before? It is only known that Razin took the beauty as his concubine. In this desperate battle, the Cossacks lost many comrades; further stay on the island became unsafe: the Persians could return in greater numbers; besides, due to the lack of fresh water in Razin's gang, diseases and mortality opened up. The Cossacks so many times duvan (shared) the loot among themselves that they were burdened with booty; and the neighboring shores are so devastated that they no longer offered bait for robberies.
I had to think about returning to my native Don.
Razin's Cossacks in Astrakhan after the Persian campaign (1669)
For this return, there were two ways: open, but shallow, along the Kuma and wide, but not free, along the Volga. Leaving the first in case of need, Razin tried to go second and swam to the mouth of the Volga. But even here the Cossacks did not change their habits. Firstly, Razin's gang plundered Basargu's uchug, which belonged to the Astrakhan Metropolitan, took away fish, caviar, seine, hooks and other fishing tackle there; and then she attacked two Persian merchant beads, which were going to Astrakhan with goods under the protection of the Terek archers; on one of them were expensive horses (argamaks), sent by the Shah as a gift to the Moscow Tsar. Razin took all the cargo; the owner-merchant fled with the archers to Astrakhan; and his son Sehambet was taken prisoner. The fugitives from the Metropolitan's office and from the Persian buses brought the Astrakhan governors news of the approach of the thieves' Cossacks. It was at the beginning of August.
Prince Prozorovsky immediately sent his comrade Prince Sem against them. Iv. Lvov with four thousand archers on thirty-six plows. The Cossacks of Razin, encamped on the island of Four Hills, seeing a strong flotilla sailing out of the Volga, did not dare to resist and fled to the open sea. The governor chased after them until his rowers got tired. Then he sent to the Cossacks a royal exhortation letter. Razin stopped and entered into negotiations. The two elected Cossacks sent by him beat him with their foreheads from the whole army, so that the great sovereign would forgive the guilty, and for that they would serve him where he indicated and lay down their heads for him. The elected officials agreed and swore an oath that Razin's Cossacks would give out the cannons they captured on the Volga ships, in the Yaitsky town and in Muslim cities, they would release the service people who were with them and their captives, and the plows would be given in Tsaritsyn, from where they would go by drag to the Don with their mined good. After that, Prince Lvov sailed to Astrakhan, and the Cossack boats followed him. The latter were let past the city and placed at the mouth of Boldin. On August 25, Razin, with several chieftains and Cossacks, appeared at the Prikaznaya hut, where the voivode, Prince Prozorovsky, met; put his leader's bunchuk in front of him, beat with his forehead on the sovereign's name about a vacation to the Don, and asked for permission to send six elected Cossacks to Moscow. The villain Razin, in case of need, knew how to pretend and impersonate a devoted servant of the sovereign. And he bypassed the greedy governor with generous gifts. Razin's Cossacks far from fulfilled the conditions they had concluded with Prince Lvov. They gave out only one half of the guns, and kept the other half, under the pretext of defending the road in the steppes from Tatar attacks. They handed over very few captured Persians, and forced the rest to ransom; they also did not give out merchant goods looted on Persian beads. Against the insistence of the governor, Razin said that the prisoners and goods were taken by the saber and had already been blown (divided), they could not be given away in any way. In the same way, Razin did not allow clerks and clerks to rewrite the Cossack army, saying that it was “not customary” to do this either on the Don or on the Yaik . In vain, the relatives and countrymen of the captive Persians approached the governors, naturally believing that since Razin's Cossacks were in the hands of the tsarist government, they should release the captives to freedom and return the looted property. The governors refused to use force, citing a gracious royal charter, and only allowed the captives to be redeemed duty-free. In general, the princes Prozorovsky and Lvov showed a different indulgence to the Cossacks and treated Razin too kindly, as if experiencing the charm of his loud fame and outstanding personality; which further confirmed the rumors spread among the people about the magical properties of the ataman of the Cossack holytba.
The ten-day stay of the thieves' Cossacks near Astrakhan was some kind of celebration for them and for the inhabitants. Razin's Cossacks traded in stolen goods, and local merchants bought silk fabrics, gold and silver items, pearls and precious stones from them for next to nothing. The Cossacks walked around in velvet caftans and hats, richly decorated with pearls and semi-precious stones. Atamans generously paid for everything with gold and silver money. Eminent citizens, the governors themselves, who profited a lot from the Cossack booty, treated Razin or accepted treats from him. Crowds of curious people went to see Cossack plows filled with all sorts of good things. Razin behaved proudly and imperiously; Cossacks and ordinary people called him father or father and bowed to him to the ground. Legends and songs began to form about him at the same time. It was said, for example, that on Razin's ship, which bore the name "Falcon", the ropes were silk, and the sails were made of expensive materials.
Razin drowns the Persian princess in the Volga
According to foreign news, it was at this time that the following incident occurred. Once Razin was drinking and riding with his comrades on the river. Suddenly, the drunken ataman turned to Mother Volga, saying that she had gloriously carried a fine fellow on her, but he had not yet thanked her with anything; then the monster seized the Persian beauty, the khan's daughter mentioned above, who was sitting next to him, luxuriously dressed, and threw her into the water. Astrakhan archers and commoners, of course, not without envy looked at the ringing gold, richly dressed and walking widely Razin Cossacks, and they were imbued with special respect and fear for their ataman. These feelings played an important role in subsequent events. In vain, the short-sighted and dainty Astrakhan governors wrote to Moscow that they did not take strict measures against the Cossacks out of fear that bloodshed would not occur and many other people would not stick to theft. With their indulgence and weakness, they precisely contributed to what they feared.
Stenka Razin throws the Persian princess into the Volga. Western European engraving 1681
Razintsy in Tsaritsyn
On September 4, the Cossacks sailed from Astrakhan to Tsaritsyn, equipped with river plows and escorted by the tenant Plokhovo; from Tsaritsyn to Panshin they were to be led by a small detachment of archers. It goes without saying that, having found themselves in complete freedom, they were not slow to return to their willful and predatory habits. In Tsaritsyn, Razin played a strict judge and, on the complaint of the Don Cossacks, who bought salt here, to voivodship extortion, forced Unkovsky to pay them for the losses. The same governor, on orders from Astrakhan, ordered to sell wine twice as expensive in order to keep the Cossacks from drinking. But the Cossacks almost killed him, and he escaped by hiding somewhere. Razin ordered the convicts to be released from prison and the merchant's plow sailing along the Volga to be robbed. Several servicemen and fugitives stuck to his gang. Poorly vainly demanded their extradition. Prozorovsky sent a special person from Astrakhan with the same demand. Razin answered the usual "it was not customary" among the Cossacks to extradite anyone; and to the convictions and threats of the envoy Prozorovsky he shouted with fury how he dared to come with such speeches. “Tell your governor that he is a fool and a coward! I am stronger than him and I will show that I am not afraid not only of him, but also of the one who is taller! I will settle accounts with them and teach them how to talk to me!” With these words, etc., he released the envoy, who no longer expected to get out alive from the hands of the violent chieftain. Meanwhile, the elected Cossacks of Razin, sent by him to Moscow, finished off their guilt with their foreheads, received royal forgiveness and were sent to Astrakhan to serve. But on the way, they attacked the escorts, seized their horses and galloped across the steppe to the Don.
Razin's return to the Don
Having reached the Don, Razin did not even think of disbanding his gang. He settled on an island between the towns of Kagalnik and Vedernikov, surrounded his camp with an earthen rampart and stayed here for the winter. He also summoned his wife and brother Frolka from Cherkassk. Razin sent many of his Cossacks home to visit relatives and pay debts; for, setting off to get zipuns, the holocausts took weapons, clothes and all sorts of supplies from the house-witted Cossacks under the condition that they share the booty with them. Now these debtors were paying off their lenders with a wide hand and thus visually reinforced the rumor that had spread through the Don towns about successful enterprises and impunity of Stenka Razin and about the upcoming new fishery that he conceived. And this rumor stirred up a new movement among the slanderous Cossacks along the Don with its tributaries and in Zaporozhye. The Kagalnitsky town was filled with newcomers, hungry for prey. The homely Cossacks saw with regret the preparations for a new campaign against the Volga, but did not know how to prevent it.
Razin's new campaign from the Don to the Volga (1670)
The spring of 1670 arrived.
A resident Evdokimov arrived in Cherkassk with a gracious royal letter to the Don army and, of course, with an order to find out the state of affairs. The Cossacks thanked for the royal mercy, especially for the promised sending of cloth, food and combat supplies. Kornilo Yakovlev gathered a circle to choose the village of the Cossacks, which, according to custom, was supposed to accompany the royal envoy to Moscow. Suddenly Razin appears with a crowd of his poor, asks where the village is chosen, and, having received the answer that they are sending her to the great sovereign, he orders Yevdokimov to be brought. He cursed the latter as a scout, beat him and ordered him to be thrown into the river. In vain Yakovlev and some of the old Cossacks tried to save the Moscow envoy and persuaded Stenka Razin. The latter threatened to do the same with them. "Keep your army, and I will rule mine!" he shouted to Yakovlev. Then he began to loudly announce that it was time to go to the Moscow boyars. Together with the boyars, he condemned priests and monks to extermination; church ceremonies, according to his concepts, were completely superfluous. Drunk, unbridled Razin lost all faith and blasphemed on occasion. By the way, when one of his young Cossacks wanted to get married, he ordered couples to dance around a tree instead of a wedding ceremony. Here, of course, the influence of folk songs with their wedding “circle of the willow bush” affected.
Kornilo Yakovlev with the homely Cossacks saw that they could not overpower the violent crowd of gouts, who were under the spell of Stenka Razin, and did nothing, waiting for a more convenient time. The Moscow government, for its part, did not remain a rather too soft way of action of the Astrakhan governors in relation to the thieves' Cossacks. The royal letter reprimanded them for the fact that they so carelessly let Stenka and his comrades out of their hands and did not take any measures to prevent their further theft. The governors justified themselves and referred, among other things, to the advice of the Metropolitan of Astrakhan. But subsequent events strongly condemned them. Among other Cossack chieftains, the then famous Vaska Us came to Stenka Razin with his gang. Now seven or more thousand Cossacks had gathered, and Razin again led them to the Volga.
Capture of Tsaritsyn by Razin
He approached Tsaritsyn, where the voivode Turgenev had already taken the place of Unkovsky. The Cossacks launched the ships they brought into the water and surrounded the city from the river and from land. Leaving Vaska Usa here, Razin himself went to the Kalmyks and Tatars roaming in the neighborhood, smashed them, captured cattle and captives. Meanwhile, in the besieged city there were people who sympathized with the Cossacks, who entered into relations with them, and then opened the city gates for them. Turgenev with a handful of faithful servants and archers locked himself in the tower. Razin arrived, was greeted with honor by the inhabitants and the clergy, and diligently treated. In a drunken state, he personally led the Cossacks to attack and took the tower. Its defenders fell, and Turgenev himself, who was still alive, was taken prisoner, was subjected to reproach and thrown into the water. At this time, a thousandth detachment of Moscow archers with their head Lopatin sailed from above to help Turgenev and other grassroots governors. Razin suddenly attacked him, but met with a courageous defense. Despite the great superiority in the number of opponents, the archers made their way to Tsaritsyn, counting on his support and not knowing about his fate. But then they were met with cannon shots. Half the squad was killed; the rest were taken prisoner. Lopatin and other archery chiefs were subjected to barbaric tortures and drowned. Razin rowed up to 300 archers on the ships he inherited. He introduced a Cossack device in Tsaritsyn and made it his stronghold fortified point. Then Razin announced that he was going up the Volga to Moscow, but not against the sovereign, but in order to exterminate the boyars and governor everywhere and give freedom to the common people. With the same speeches, he sent out his scouts in different directions to revolt the people. Circumstances forced Razin to turn first down, and not up the Volga.
The capture of Astrakhan and its robbery by the Cossacks
Already Stenka managed to take the city of Kamyshin with the same treason as Tsaritsyn, and also drown the governor with the initial people, when news came to him of the approach of the ship's army sent against him from Astrakhan. Upon learning of Razin's new indignation, Prince Prozorovsky hastened to make amends for his former reckless indecision. He assembled and armed with cannons up to forty ships, put on them more than 3,000 archers and free people and sent them to Razin again under the command of his comrade Prince Lvov. But this belated decision also turned out to be reckless. Razin left in Tsaritsyn one person out of every ten, about 700 cavalry men sent by the shore; and with other forces, up to 8,000 in number, he swam towards Prince Lvov. But his main strength was in the unsteadiness and in the betrayals of service or military people. Among the archers, his minions were already mixed up, who whispered to them about the freedom and prey that awaited them under the banner of Stenka Razin. And the archers already had sympathy for him from the time of his stay near Astrakhan. The soil was so well prepared that when the two fleets met near Cherny Yar, the Astrakhan archers noisily and joyfully greeted Stenka Razin as their father, then bandaged and betrayed their heads, centurions and other commanders. They were all beaten; only Prince Lvov is still alive. The city of Cherny Yar also passed into the hands of the Cossacks by treachery, and the governor and loyal service people were subjected to torture and death.
Razin pondered where he should now go: whether to go up the Volga to Saratov, Samara, etc. or down to Astrakhan? The Astrakhan archers who were transferred to him inclined Razin's decision in favor of Astrakhan, assuring that they were waiting for him there and the city would be handed over to him.
They say that Astrakhan residents were already embarrassed in advance by various ominous signs, such as an earthquake, night bells, unknown noise in churches, etc. The news of the betrayal of the sent archers and the approach of Razin's Cossacks produced final despondency among the city authorities; and the seditious began to act almost openly. Excited by them, the archers boldly demanded that the governor pay a salary. Prince Prozorovsky answered them that the treasury had not yet been sent from the great sovereign, that he would give them as much as possible from himself and from the Metropolitan, if only they served faithfully and did not give in to the speech of the traitor and apostate Stenka Razin. The Metropolitan gave 600 rubles of his cell money, and took 2,000 rubles from the Trinity Monastery. The archers, apparently, were satisfied and even promised to stand against Razin's thieves. But the governor did not rely on these promises and did what he could to defend the city. He strengthened the guards, inspected and strengthened the walls and ramparts, placed cannons on them, etc. His main assistants in these preparations were the German Butler, the captain of the tsarist ship Oryol, which was stationed near the city, and the Englishman Colonel Thomas Boyle. The governor caressed them and counted especially on Butler's German team; even Persians, Circassians and Kalmyks he trusted more than archers.
Meanwhile, the ominous signs resumed. On June 13, guard archers reported to the metropolitan that at night sparks were falling from the sky on the city, as if from a fiery flaming furnace. Joseph shed tears and said that it was the phial of God's wrath that had been poured out. A native of Astrakhan, he was a boy during the time of Zarutsky and Marina and remembered the fury of the Cossacks of that time. A few days later, the guard archers announce a new sign: they saw three rainbow pillars with three crowns on top. And this is not good! And then there are torrential rains with hail, and instead of the usual hot weather, it is so cold that you need to walk in a warm dress.
Around the 20th of June, numerous boats of the thieves' Cossacks of Razin approached and began to surround the city, surrounded by the Volga branches and channels. In order not to give shelter to the Cossacks, the authorities burned the suburban Tatar settlement. The city gates were bricked up. The Metropolitan with the clergy walked around the walls in a procession. Several Stenka scouts who entered the city were captured and executed. Streltsy foremen and the best townspeople were gathered at the metropolitan court and, after archpastoral convictions, they promised to fight Razin's thieves, not sparing their lives. Posadsky were armed and placed for the defense of the city along with archers. Seeing the preparations of Razin's gang for a night attack, Prince Prozorovsky took a blessing from the metropolitan, put on a military harness and, on a war horse, left his court in the evening, observing the usual ceremonial in war. He was accompanied by his brother Mikhail Semyonovich, the children of the boyars, his yard servants and clerks; horses covered with blankets were led forward, they blew trumpets and beat tulunbass. He stood at the Ascension Gate, which the Cossacks of Razin, apparently, wanted to strike with the main forces. But that was a hoax: in fact, they had marked other places for the attack. After a quiet night at dawn, the Razintsy suddenly set up ladders and climbed onto the fortifications. Cannon shots rang out from the latter. But they were mostly harmless shots. The prepared stones and boiling water did not fall and did not pour on Razin's people. On the contrary, imaginary defenders gave them their hands and helped them climb the walls.
With a boom and a cry, Razin's Cossacks burst into the city and, together with the Astrakhan rabble, began to beat the nobles, the children of boyars, officials and voivodeship servants. The governor's brother fell, struck from a self-propelled gun; Prince Prozorovsky himself received a mortal wound with a spear in the stomach, and was carried by his serfs to the cathedral church on a carpet. Metropolitan Joseph hurried here and personally communed Sts. Secrets to the governor, with whom he was in great friendship. The temple was filled with clerks, archers, officers, merchants, boyar children, women, girls and children who fled from thieves. The iron lattice doors of the temple were locked, and a Pentecostal archer Frol Dura stood in front of them with a knife in his hands. Razin's Cossacks shot through the doors and killed the child in his mother's arms; then the grill was broken. Frol Dura desperately defended himself with a knife and was cut down. Prince Prozorovsky and many others were dragged out of the temple and put under a peal. Razin came and pronounced his judgment. The voevoda was lifted to a roar and thrown down from there; the rest were immediately chopped with swords, flogged with reeds, beaten with clubs. Then Razin's people took their corpses to the Trinity Monastery and dumped them in a common grave; the elder monk standing by her counted 441 corpses. Only a handful of Circassians (people of Kaspulat Mutsalovich), who sat in the same tower along with several Russians, fired back until they ran out of gunpowder; then they tried to flee out of town, but were overtaken by Razin's Cossacks and hacked to death. The Germans also tried to defend Stepan Razi n, but then turned to flight. There was rampant looting in the city. They plundered the clerk's office, church property, the yards of merchants and foreign guests, such as Bukhara, Gilyansky, Indian. All this was then brought to one place and divided (poured). In addition to his bloodthirstiness, Razin was also distinguished by a special hatred for official writing: he ordered all papers from government offices to be collected and solemnly burned. At the same time, he boasted that he would also burn all the cases in Moscow at the top, i.e. at the sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich himself.
Astrakhan was rendered. Razin divided the population into thousands, hundreds and tens. From now on, it was to be controlled by the Cossack circle and elected chieftains, yesauls, centurions and foremen. One morning, a solemn oath was arranged outside the city, where the population took an oath to faithfully serve the great sovereign and Stepan Timofeevich, and bring out traitors. Razin, obviously, did not dare to openly encroach on the royal power, which was so deeply rooted in the minds of the Russian people: he constantly repeated that he armed himself for the great sovereign against his traitors, the Moscow boyars and clerks; but it is known that these two estates were unloved by the people, who attributed to them all the lies, all their hardships, and especially the establishment of serfdom. Naturally, therefore, what a friendly response Razin’s deceptive call for freedom and Cossack equality found in the lower classes, not only among the serfs and the peasantry, but also among the townspeople and ordinary service people, such as gunners, collars, zatinschiki and, finally, the archers themselves. The latter constituted the main support of the voivodship power in the Volga cities; but they were not satisfied with their sometimes difficult, poorly rewarded service and looked with envy at the free Cossack, who had the opportunity to show his prowess, take a walk in the open and enrich himself with booty. From this it is clear why the archers in those places so easily went over to the side of Razin's thieves' Cossacks. In these troubled circumstances, the local clergy had to play an unenviable, suffering role. When all civil authorities were exterminated, Metropolitan Joseph shut himself up in his courtyard and, apparently, only mourned the events, realizing his helplessness. Among the priests there were several persons who selflessly tried to denounce Stenka Razin and his comrades; but they were martyred; others involuntarily carried out the orders of the chieftain; for example, without hierarchal permission, noble wives and daughters were married, whom Razin forcibly married his Cossacks. Moreover, the thieves' Cossacks were least distinguished by their religiosity. Razin did not observe fasts and was disrespectful of church rites; his example was followed not only by the old Cossacks, but also by the new ones, i.e. Astrakhan residents; and those who thought to contradict were mercilessly beaten.
Razin's Cossacks celebrated their luck in Astrakhan noisily and cheerfully. Every day there was a revelry and drinking bouts. Razin was constantly drunk and in this form decided the fate of people who were guilty of something and presented to him for trial: he ordered one to be drowned, another to be beheaded, a third to be mutilated, and the fourth to be set free by some whim. On the name day of Tsarevich Feodor Alekseevich, he suddenly came with the initial Cossacks to visit the Metropolitan, and he treated them to dinner. And then Razin ordered to take in turn both sons of the murdered Prince Prozorovsky, who, together with their mother, were hiding in the metropolitan chambers. The older 16-year-old Razin asked where the customs money collected from the merchants. “Send to the salaries of service people,” the prince answered and referred to the clerk Alekseev. "Where are your bellies?" he continued to interrogate and received the answer: "plundered." Razin ordered both boys to be hung by the legs on the city wall, and the clerk - on a hook by the rib. The next day, the clerk was taken dead, the elder Prozorovsky was thrown from the wall, and the younger one was flogged alive and given to his mother.
A whole month of drunken and idle stay in Astrakhan passed.
Razin's hike up the Volga
Razin finally came to his senses and realized that in Moscow, although not soon, they nevertheless received news of his exploits and were gathering forces against him. He ordered to prepare for the campaign. At this time, a crowd of Astrakhans comes to Razin and says that some nobles and clerks managed to escape. She asked the ataman to order them to be found, otherwise, if the sovereign's troops were sent, they would be their first enemies. “When I leave Astrakhan, then do what you want,” Razin answered them. In Astrakhan, he handed the ataman power to Vasily Us, and appointed atamans Fedka Sheludyak and Ivan Tersky as his comrades; left half of the shown Astrakhan and archers, and two from each dozen Donets. And with the rest, Razin sailed up the Volga on two hundred plows; 2,000 mounted Cossacks walked along the shore. Having reached Tsaritsyn, Razin sent to the Don part of the goods stolen in Astrakhan under the cover of a special detachment. The next most significant cities, Saratov and Samara, were easily captured, thanks to the betrayal of military people. Governors, nobles and clerks were beaten; their property is plundered; and the inhabitants received a Cossack device, and some of them reinforced the hordes of thieves,
At the beginning of September 1970, Razin was already near Simbirsk.
The scouts sent out by him managed to disperse in the lower regions, and some penetrated as far as Moscow itself. Everywhere they confused the people with tempting promises to exterminate the boyars and clerks, to introduce equality, and consequently the division of property. For the greater entrapment of the common people, the cunning Razin even resorted to such a deception: his agents assured that in the Cossack army were Patriarch Nikon, unjustly overthrown by the tsar, and (who died at the beginning of this year) the heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich, under the name Nechaya; the latter allegedly did not die, but ran away from boyar malice and parental untruth. Stirring up the Orthodox Russian population in this way, Stenka Razin's agents made other speeches among schismatics and foreigners; the first were promised the freedom of the old faith, the second liberation from Russian rule. Thus, the Cheremis, Chuvashs, Mordovians, Tatars were outraged, and many of them hurried to join the hordes of Razin. He even called on external enemies to help him against the Muscovite state: for this he sent for the Crimean horde and offered his allegiance to the Persian Shah. But both were unsuccessful. The shah, burning with vengeance for the predatory raid and abhorring intercourse with the robber, ordered the execution of Stenka's envoys.
The siege of Simbirsk and the defeat of Razin by Baryatinsky
The city of Simbirsk was very important in its position: it was part of a fortified line or serif line that went west to Insar, east to Menzelinsk. The difficult task was not to let Stenka Razin and his hordes inside this line. Simbirsk had a strong city; the Kremlin, and in addition a fortified settlement or prison. The Kremlin was sufficiently supplied with cannons and had a garrison of archers, soldiers, as well as local nobles and boyar children, who had gathered here from the county and sat down under siege. The governor here was the devious Ivan Bogdanovich Miloslavsky. In view of the imminent invasion of Razin, he repeatedly asked for help from the chief Kazan governor, Prince Urusov. He hesitated and, finally, sent him a detachment under the command of Prince Yury Nikitich Baryatinsky. The latter approached Simbirsk almost simultaneously with the hordes of Razin; he had soldiers and reytars, i.e. people trained in the European system, but in insufficient numbers. He withstood a stubborn battle, but could not get to the city, and all the more so since many of his reiters from the Tatars gave the rear, and the Simbirs changed and let the Cossacks into the prison. Miloslavsky locked himself in the Kremlin. Baryatinsky retreated to Tetyushi and requested reinforcements. For about a month, Miloslavsky defended himself against Razin in his city and beat off all the Cossack attacks. Finally, Baryatinsky, having received reinforcements, again approached Simbirsk. Here, in early October, on the banks of the Sviyaga, Razin attacked him with all his might; but he was defeated, he himself received two wounds and went to the prison. Baryatinsky connected with Miloslavsky. All the next night, Razin thought about setting fire to the city. But suddenly he heard screams from the other side in the distance. That was part of the army, detached by Baryatinsky in order to deceive the enemy. Indeed, it seemed to Stenka that a new royal army was coming, and he decided to flee. Razin announced to the discordant crowds of rendered townspeople and foreigners that he wanted to strike at the rear of the governors with his Dons. Instead, he rushed to the boats and sailed down the Volga. The governors set fire to the prison and attacked in unison the crowds of rebels from two sides; seeing themselves deceived and abandoned, the latter also hastened to the boats; but they were overtaken and subjected to a terrible beating. Several hundred captured Razintsy were executed without trial and mercy.
Popular uprisings in the Volga region and the struggle of the tsarist governors with them
Stenka Razin's idle stay in Astrakhan and his detention near Simbirsk gave the Moscow government time to gather strength and generally take measures to combat the rebellion. But the first unsuccessful clash between Baryatinsky and the thieves' Cossacks and the retreat to Tetyushi, in turn, helped the Razinsky minnows to spread the rebellion to the north and west of Simbirsk, that is, inside the security line. The rebellion was already blazing here in a large area, when the defeated Razin fled south with his dons. One can imagine what size this fire could have taken if Razin had moved north from Simbirsk as a winner. Now the royal commanders had to deal with fragmented rebellious crowds, deprived of unity and a common leader. And yet, they still had to fight this many-headed hydra for a long time. So great was the movement of the posad and peasant people, excited by Razin against the estates of the clerk and the landowner.
The mutiny engulfed the entire space between the lower Oka and the middle Volga, and simmered mainly in the region of the Sura River. It mostly started in the villages; the peasants beat the landlords and robbed their yards, then, under the leadership of the Don Razin, they formed Cossack gangs and went to the cities. Here the townspeople opened the gates for them, helped to beat the governor and clerks, introduced the Cossack device and installed their own chieftains. It also happened vice versa: the city mob raised a rebellion, formed a militia or molested some Cossack gang and went to the county to revolt the peasants and exterminate the landowners. These rebellious militias were usually led by atamans sent by Razin, for example, Maxim Osipov, Mishka Kharitonov, Vaska Fedorov, Shilov, etc. Some rebellious crowds moved along the Saransk notch line, took Korsun, Atemar, Insar, Saransk; then they took possession of Penza, Nizhny and Upper Lomov, Kerensky and entered the Kadomsky district. Other crowds went to Alatyr, which they took and burned along with the governor Buturlin, his family and nobles, who had locked themselves in the cathedral church. Then they took Temnikov, Kurmysh, Yadrin, Vasilsursk, Kozmodemyansk. At the same time with the Russian peasants, the atamans of Razin raised and took into their gangs the Volga foreigners, i.e. Mordovians, Tatars, Cheremis and Chuvash. The peasants of the rich village of Lyskovo themselves called on Razin's comrade-in-arms, Ataman Osipov from Kurmysh, and together with him went to the opposite bank of the Volga to besiege the Makaryev Zheltovodsky Monastery, in which the property of many wealthy people from the neighboring region was stored. Thieves shouting “Nechay! Nechay! attacked the monastery and tried to set it on fire. But the monks and servants, with the help of their peasants and pilgrims, fought off the attack and put out the fire. The thieves went to the village of Murashkino; and then they soon returned and managed to seize the monastery by an accidental attack; the goods stored there, of course, were plundered. In the village of Murashkino, ataman Osipov began to gather large forces in order to go to Nizhny Novgorod, where the city mob had already called on Razin's Cossacks. But at that time the news came about the defeat of Razin near Simbirsk and his flight to the bottom. The tsarist governors could now turn their regiments to pacify the peasant-townsman revolt.
However, the fight against numerous and widespread rebellious crowds was not easy. Prince Yuri Alekseevich Dolgoruky was placed at the head of the tsarist governor for this struggle. He made Arzamas his stronghold, from where he directed the actions of his subordinate governors in different directions. His main difficulty was the lack of troops; the stolniki, lawyers, nobles and boyar children appointed under his command were mostly listed as nets, for all the roads were teeming with gangs of thieves who did not let the military men marching to their regiments. However, the detachments sent by Prince. Dolgoruky, they began to beat the rebellious crowds excited by Razin, and little by little clear the neighboring region of them. The main forces of the rebels were concentrated in the village of Murashkino. Dolgoruky sent the voivode Prince Shcherbatov and Leontiev to them. On October 22, these governors withstood a stubborn battle with a more numerous enemy, who had a considerable number of guns, and defeated him. The Lyskovites surrendered without a fight, and the governors triumphantly entered Nizhny. Then the cleansing of the Nizhny Novgorod district continued, despite the desperate resistance of the gangs of thieves, sometimes containing several thousand people and defending themselves in slums, fortified with ramparts and fences. It goes without saying that the victories over them and, in general, the pacification of the Razin rebellion were accompanied by their cruel executions, the burning of entire villages and villages.
The cleansing of the Nizhny Novgorod district was followed by the same pacification of Kadomsky, Temnikovsky, Shatsky, etc., accompanied by desperate battles. When the forces of Razin's rebellion were gradually broken, and numerous executions and defeats frightened the minds, a reverse movement began. The rebellious cities and villages began to meet the victorious governors with clergy, images and crosses and beat with their foreheads for forgiveness, referring to the fact that they stuck to the rebellion raised by Razin involuntarily under the threat of death and ruin from thieves; and sometimes they themselves gave out instigators and leaders. The governors executed these leaders and swore in the petitioners. A curious incident occurred in Temnikovo. The obedient inhabitants of it, by the way, issued Prince. Dolgorukov as the leaders of the rebellion priest Savva and the old woman-sorceress Alena. The latter, a peasant by birth, who was tonsured a nun, not only led a gang of thieves, but admitted (under torture, of course) that she was engaged in witchcraft and corrupted people. The rebellious priest was hanged, and the old woman, an imaginary sorceress, was burned.
When Dolgoruky, in his gradual movement from west to east, reached Sura, that is, approached Kazan, Prince P.S. Urusov was recalled from here for his slowness as governor. Prince Dolgoruky, appointed in his place, received under his command the governor who fought with Razin. Of these, Prince Yuri Baryatinsky took the most active part in the further fight against the Razin rebellion. He had several stubborn battles with the thieves' crowds, which were under the command of the atamans Romashka and Murza Kalka. Especially remarkable is his victory over them on November 12, 1670 near Ust-Urenskaya Sloboda, on the banks of the Kondratka River, which flows into the Sura; so many rebels fell here that, in his own words, the blood flowed in great streams, as after a heavy rain. A large crowd of residents from Alatyr and its district came to meet the winner with images; she begged with tears for forgiveness and for protection from Razin's gangs of thieves. Baryatinsky occupied Alatyr and fortified here, in anticipation of an attack. Indeed, soon the united forces of atamans Kalka, Savelyev, Nikitinsky, Ivashka Malyny, and others headed here. The victors moved to Saransk, executing the captured leaders and bringing the Russian peasants to the oath, and the Tatars and Mordovians to the sherti (oath) according to their faith. At the same time, other governors sent by Prince Dolgorukov, who, after Temnikov, settled in Krasnaya Sloboda, also acted against the Razin rebellion. Prince Konst. Shcherbaty cleared the Penza Territory, the Upper and Lower Lomovs from Razin's thieves; Yakov Khitrovo moved to Kerensk and in the village of Achadovo struck down a thieves' crowd; moreover, the Smolensk gentry with their colonel Shviikovsky especially distinguished themselves. The Kerenchans opened the gates to the winners. Taking advantage of the movement of the governors to the south, in the rear of them in the Alatyr and Arzamas districts, the gangs of thieves from Russians and Mordovians who stood behind Razin again gathered and began to fortify in the notches, armed with cannons. Voivode Leontiev was sent against them, who defeated the thieves, took their notches and burned their villages. On the upland bank of the Volga, Prince Danila Baryatinsky (Yuri's brother) pacified the rebellious Chuvash and Cheremis. He occupied Tsivilsk, Cheboksary, Vasilsursk, took Kozmodemyansk by storm and defeated the crowd of thousands of thieves that had come here from Yadrin; after which the Yadrintsy and Kurmyshans finished off with their foreheads. The pacification of Razin's rebellion was accompanied by the usual executions of thieves' leaders. It is curious that priests are sometimes found among them; such in Kozmodemyansk was the cathedral priest Fedorov.
Thus, by the beginning of 1671, the Volga-Oka region was pacified by fire and sword, i.e. with streams of blood and the glow of fires, the movement of peasants and townspeople, excited by Razin, against serfdom, against Moscow boyars and clerks, was suppressed. But in the southeastern Ukraine, the Cossack squalor still raged; and Razin was still walking free.
Razin's flight to the Don
However, he soon came to an end.
In vain, Razin spread the rumor about his sorcery, that neither a bullet nor a saber takes him, and that supernatural forces help him. The sooner and more fully disappointment set in when supporters, carried away by his success and promises, suddenly saw Razin beaten, wounded and fleeing. Samartsev and Saratov locked their gates in front of him. Only in Tsaritsyn did he find shelter and rest with the remnants of his gangs. Although Razin still had rebellious Astrakhan forces at his disposal; but he did not want to come there now as a fugitive; but he moved to his Kagalnitsky town and from there tried to raise the entire Don.
While the rebels were successful, the Don army behaved indecisively and waited for events. Its chief ataman Kornilo Yakovlev, being an opponent of the rebellion, however, acted cautiously and so adroitly that he survived Razin's ardent, merciless slanderers and at the same time kept secret relations with the Moscow government. When in September 1670 a new tsarist letter came to the Don with an exhortation of fidelity and was read in the Cossack circle, Yakovlev tried to persuade the Cossack brothers to put aside their stupidity, lag behind Razin, repent and, following the example of their fathers, serve the great sovereign by faith and truth. The housewives supported the ataman and already wanted to choose a village in order to send her to Moscow with a confession. But Razin's supporters still made up a strong party, which opposed this choice. Another two months have passed. The news of the defeat and flight of Stenka Razin immediately changed the situation on the Don. Kornilo Yakovlev clearly and decisively began to act against the rebels and found friendly support among the households. In vain did Razin send out his minions; no one came to help him. In his impotent rage, he (according to the modern act) burned several captured opponents in a furnace instead of firewood. In vain Razin appeared with his gang and wanted to personally act in Cherkassk; he was not allowed into the city and forced to leave with nothing.
The defeat of the Kagalnitsky town
This incident, however, prompted the military ataman Yakovlev to send a village to Moscow with a request to send troops to help against the rebels. In Moscow, by order of the patriarch, on the week of Orthodoxy, along with other apostates, they proclaimed a loud anathema to Stenka Razin. The Don people were answered with an order to repair the fishery over Stenkoy and deliver him to Moscow; and the Belgorod governor, Prince Romodanovsky, was ordered to send the stolnik Kosogov to the Don with a thousand selected reiters and dragoons. But before Kosogov arrived, Kornilo Yakovlev with the Don army approached the Kagalnitsky town. The thieves' Cossacks of Razin, seeing that their cause was completely lost on the Don, for the most part left their chieftain and fled to Astrakhan. April 14, 1671 the town was taken and burned. Razin's accomplices who were captured were hanged; only he and his brother Frolka were delivered alive to Moscow under a strong escort.
Razin's execution in Moscow
Dressed in sackcloth, on a cart with a gallows fixed on it, chained to it, the famous robber ataman Razin drove into the capital; his brother ran after the cart, also tied to it with a chain. Crowds of people looked with curiosity at the man about whom there were so many disturbing rumors and all sorts of rumors. The villain was brought to the Zemsky yard, where duma people subjected him to the usual wanted list. Foreign news says that during this search, Razin once again showed the iron fortress of his body and his character: he endured all the most cruel methods of torture and did not answer questions addressed to him. But this news is not entirely true: Razin answered something and, among other things, said that Nikon sent a monk to him. On June 6, on Red Square, Razin, with an air of insensibility, met his fierce execution: he was quartered, and parts of his body were torn apart on stakes in the so-called Zamoskvoretsky Swamp. His brother Frolka Razin, who shouted that he had the sovereign's word and deed, received a reprieve and was executed a few years later.
Stepan Razin. Painting by S. Kirillov, 1985–1988
The Moscow government did not fail to take advantage of the suppression of the Razin rebellion in order to restrict the freedom of the Don and to secure the army to the state with stronger bonds. Stolnik Kosogov brought to the Don a gracious royal charter, cash and grain salaries, as well as ammunition. But at the same time, he brought the demand for an oath of allegiance to the great sovereign. Young and less significant Cossacks, who had previously staggered to Razin, tried to contradict in Cossack circles, but the old ones prevailed, and on August 29, the Don people, with the military ataman Semyon Loginov at the head, were sworn in by the priest according to the established rank, in the presence of the steward and the clerk .
Stepan Razin in fiction
Maximilian Voloshin. Stenkin's court (poem)
Marina Tsvetaeva. Stenka Razin (a cycle of three poems)
Velimir Khlebnikov. Razin (poem)
V. A. Gilyarovsky. Stenka Razin (poem)
Vasily Kamensky. "Stepan Razin" (poem)
A. Chapygin. Razin Stepan (novel)
Vasily Shukshin. I Came to Set You Free (novel)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The execution of Stenka Razin (poem)
Stepan Razin in historical literature and sources
Search case about the rebellion of Razin and his accomplices
Report of clerk Kolesnikov on the capture of Astrakhan by Razin
Popov A. History of Stenka Razin's indignation. Journal "Russian conversation", 1857
Materials for the history of the indignation of Stenka Razin. M., 1857
N. I. Kostomarov. Rebellion of Stenka Razin
S. M. SOLOVIEV History of Russia (vol. XI)
S. F. Platonov. § 84 in the Textbook of Russian History ("Razin's Movement")
Questions for the interrogation of Razin, compiled by Tsar Alexei
T. Hebdon's letter to R. Daniel about the execution of Razin
I. Yu. Martsy. Dissertation on the uprising of S. Razin (1674)
A fantastic story in detail by an unknown English author about the victory of the tsarist troops over Razin
Peasant war led by Stepan Razin. M., 1957
Chistyakova E.V., Solovyov V.M. Stepan Razin and his associates. M., 1988
A. L. Stanislavsky. Civil war in Russia in the 17th century: Cossacks at the turning point of history. M., 1990
Stepan Razin - Don Cossack and ataman. In 1670-1671, he led the largest popular uprising - the Peasants' War.
Many consider Stenka Razin a violent robber, the hero of a song who, in a fit of anger and passion, drowned the Persian princess. That's probably all that his name is associated with, but in vain. Because all of the above is just a myth, fiction. In fact, Stepan Razin was an outstanding commander and politician. He became a "father" to all the humiliated and offended. No wonder the authorities were so afraid of him, even after his death he inspired them with a sense of fear, even though his quartered body dangled on poles near Moscow.
Childhood
Stepan Razin was born in 1630. Unfortunately, the exact date of his birth has not been preserved. Razin's homeland is the village of Zimoveyskaya, although according to other sources, his hometown is Cherkassk. Stepan's father's name was Timofey Razya, he lived in the Voronezh region. What caused him to move to the Don has remained a mystery. Perhaps he was driven by hunger, or maybe lawlessness and endless oppression, who will now say for sure. Timothy was strong, courageous, energetic, and very soon became "homey", i.e. rich Cossack. Not a single military campaign could do without him. He even brought his wife back from one such trip. He captured a Turkish woman, married her, and the young wife gave him three sons - Ivan, Stepan and Frol. Stepan became the godson of the ataman Kornila Yakovlev himself.
Time of Troubles
In 1649, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov signed the "Conciliar Message", which finally drove the peasants into bondage to serfdom. The document stated that serfs could be inherited, and if they ran away, then the period of their search reached 15 years. After this law was passed, the country began to choke on rebellions and uprisings, many peasants fled from their masters, trying to find free lands and settlements.
Troubled times have come. In the Cossack settlements, “golytba” constantly appeared - poor peasants who asked to join the wealthy Cossacks. Fugitive peasants organized themselves into detachments, stole and robbed. The number of Cossack settlements grew, the Don, Terk and Yaik Cossacks became especially large. Accordingly, their military power was also strengthened.
Youth
1665 can be called a turning point in the biography of Stepan Razin. At that time, his older brother, Ivan, a participant in the Russian-Polish campaign, decided on an unauthorized withdrawal from the positions. He took his army and went to his homeland. The custom was that representatives of the free Cossacks could not follow the orders of the government. However, the army of Yuri Dolgorukov caught up with Ivan Razin and his fighters. Dolgoruky charged them with desertion and ordered them to be executed on the spot. After the news of the death of his brother reached Stepan, he fiercely hated the Russian nobility. He decides to fight with Moscow in order to put an end to the boyars forever. The situation of the peasants also worried Stepan Razin, and this was another reason to go with the army to Moscow.
Characteristic features of Razin were prowess and ingenuity. He was not accustomed to breaking through, he tried to settle everything diplomatically and by cunning. Thanks to this, Stepan from a young age was part of the delegations that represented the interests of the Cossacks in Astrakhan and Moscow. Stepan was considered a born diplomat who could handle even the most hopeless negotiations. During the well-known campaign, called "for the zipuns", all its participants could suffer. But after a short communication between Razin and the royal governor of Lvov, the army calmly went home, and with a supply of new weapons. Stepan Razin received a gift from the tsar's governor - an icon of the Virgin.
Razin managed to reconcile the representatives of the southern nationalities. When the Kalmyks and the Nagaybak Tatars entered into a confrontation, it was Razin who managed to act as an intermediary and prevent bloodshed from either side.
Insurrection
In the spring of 1667, Razin began gathering his troops. By that time, he managed to gather two thousand soldiers, with whom he set off along the tributaries of the Volga, simultaneously taking away everything of value from the ships belonging to the boyars and merchants. The authorities have not yet seen a riot in the robberies, because basically, all the Cossacks lived precisely at the expense of the usual robbery raids. However, Razin was simply not attracted by robbery. In a village called Cherny Yar, Razin mercilessly dealt with the archery troops, releasing everyone who was in custody at that moment. After that, his path led to Yaik. The rebel troops used a trick, penetrated into its territory, and completely subjugated the settlement.
In 1669, Razin's army became many times larger; fugitive peasants replenished it. Razin led his troops to the Caspian, where they fought the Persians. During one of the fights, Stepan managed to snatch victory from Mammad Khan by cunning. The boats of the Razin army pretended to be running from the Persian ships, and Mamed ordered to unite all his ships and completely surround the Cossack army. But then Razin made a tactical move, turned around and heavily fired on the main ship of the Persians. The ship began to sink, followed by the entire enemy flotilla. So, not having a large army, Stepan managed to snatch victory in the battle near Pig Island. Ataman was well aware that the Persians would not forgive him for the victory, they would begin to gather an army of much larger numbers. Therefore, he gave the order to advance to the Don through Astrakhan.
Peasants' War
In 1670, Stepan Razin began preparing his troops for a campaign against Moscow. He climbed up the Volga, visited all the cities and coastal villages. He tried to attract as many local residents as possible to his army. Razin came up with the so-called "charming letters" - letters that were distributed in every city. They said that the boyars could be put an end to if you joined the ranks of the rebellious army.
Not only those who were tired of enduring oppression reached out to the Cossacks. Among the volunteers one could see artisans, Old Believers, Chuvashs, Maris, Mordvins, Tatars, and even Russian soldiers who served in government troops. After wholesale desertion began to flourish in the army, the tsarist troops were replenished with Polish and Baltic mercenaries. But it was better for these soldiers not to fall into the hands of the Cossacks, all foreign prisoners of war were executed.
Razin deliberately started a rumor that the Cossacks gave shelter to the missing Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich and the exiled Patriarch Nikon. So the ataman tried to attract as many volunteers as possible under his banners.
In just one year, residents of almost ten Russian cities pulled up to him. Razin lost the battle near Simbirsk, this time luck smiled at Prince Yu. Baryatinsky. Razin was wounded and retreated to the Don.
For six months, the Kagalnitsky town became the place of residence of the ataman and his entourage. However, this state of affairs did not suit the local wealthy Cossacks, they decided to surrender Razin to government troops. The elders were afraid that Stepan's stay with them would cause royal wrath, from which all Russian Cossacks would not be healthy. In the spring of 1671, Razin was taken prisoner and, together with his entourage, was taken to Moscow.
Personal life
Historical documents have not preserved information about Razin's personal life. Although it is known that he had a son who continued his father's business. In the battle against the Azov Tatars, the young man was captured, but he was soon released.
The legend says that the second wife of the ataman was a Persian princess. She was captured by the Cossacks after the battle in the Caspian Sea. The girl became the mother of Stepan's children, but the chieftain became jealous and drowned her in the Volga. Whether it was actually, it was not possible to prove, most likely it is just a myth.
Death
At the very beginning of the summer of 1671, the stolnik Grigory Kosagov and the clerk Andrey Bogdanov delivered Stepan and his younger brother Frol to Moscow. They were brutally tortured and sentenced to death four days later. Razin was quartered on Bolotnaya Square. Frol could not bear what he saw, began to ask for mercy, promising to tell in return secret information about the treasures that Razin had robbed. Five years passed, no treasures could be found, so Frol was also executed.
Monuments to Stepan Razin
After Stepan was executed, the war continued for another 6 months. Now the chieftains Fedor Sheludyak and Vasily Us were at the head of the Cossacks. But they were not as wise and charismatic as their predecessor, so the uprising was soon crushed. The consequences of the popular struggle only aggravated the position of the serfs. The laws became even more stringent, the serfs were no longer allowed to change owners, and if the serf does not obey, then the punishment can be anything, even the most severe.
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