If you come to Uralsk and walk along its streets, you will not find anything that would remind you of its centuries-old Cossack past. Of the monuments built by the chieftains of the Ural Cossack army, only the rotunda has survived, which in the century before last adorned Stolypin Boulevard, and now modestly nestled behind the building of the Pedagogical University The only monument of Uralsk of the pre-revolutionary period.
And the monuments on the streets of the city were erected in Soviet or post-Soviet times and reflect the realities of the USSR and sovereign Kazakhstan. Many streets were renamed by the Soviet authorities, and then in the second round by the current authorities.
From memorial plaques on some buildings you can get information about the events of the civil war, Soviet and Kazakh celebrities. Not a single tablet about chieftains, Cossacks or other inhabitants of pre-revolutionary Uralsk. As if the history of Uralsk began only in the last century. But the houses of the preserved old part of the city were built at the time and thanks to the Ural Cossack army.
In the material of Gorynychi from Yaik, I spoke about the origin of the Yaik Cossacks, the appearance of the Yaik town, the uprising of E.I. Pugachev and renaming the Yaitsky town to Uralsk. After the overthrow of the emperor in March 1917, an emergency congress elected from the Cossack villages decided to return the name Yaitsky to the Ural Cossack army, the city of Uralsk - Yaitsk, the Ural River - Yaik. But it was not possible to reverse history and the old names did not take root.
About the Ural Cossack army from the suppression of the Pugachev uprising until 1917 and will be discussed in this material. But first I would like to recall two more famous people who visited the Yaik town before and during the suppression of the Pugachev uprising: Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin and Peter Simon Pallas.
When they write about the stay of G.R. Derzhavin in Yaitsky town, they modestly avoid the question of when and why he was there. And he visited the Yaik town in 1775, when, as part of the famous Preobrazhensky regiment, he participated in the suppression of the Pugachev uprising from 1773 to 1775.
Peter Simon Pallas (1741 - 1811) - famous German and Russian scientist and traveler. During his many years of travel in Russia, he called in the Yaitsky town three times - in August and September 1769 on the way to Siberia and on the way back at the end of May 1773.
After the suppression of the execution of Pugachev, new riots broke out from time to time: in 1804, 1825, 1837, 1874. Most of these riots arose because of the desire of the Cossacks to preserve the old traditions. Wearing a unified uniform, creating registers and even personal documents was a tragedy for them.
In 1804, the "Kochkin Pir" arose, when the Cossacks, refusing to wear a uniform, were flogged by a battalion sent from Orenburg, under the command of Kochkin. Now Abay Square is the very center of the city, and then it was the outskirts. Then, next to this place in 1891, the Arc de Triomphe was erected in honor of the tercentenary of the service of the Army to the Tsar and in honor of the arrival of the heir, Nikolai Alexandrovich. People called it the Red Gate. In 1927 they were broken, they became the first architectural monument demolished by the Soviet authorities in Uralsk. But alas, not the last. See how lonely Abay Square looks without the Red Gate.
At the top is Abay Square with the building of the regional akimat. Below on the left is a model of the Red Gate, on the right is a photograph of the beginning of the last century. Initially, when the Arc de Triomphe was installed, the building of the Commercial and Industrial Bank, where the akimat is located, did not exist.
The square, which now bears the name of Abai, was called Turkestanskaya before the revolution. The Yaik Cossacks stood as a human shield on the borders, protecting them from raids by armed fellows from the Khiva, Bukhara and Kokand khanates. When Russia began its expansion into Central Asia, the Ural Cossacks were recruited as cavalry troops. Hundreds of Ural Cossacks died in Turkestan in these campaigns.
Ikanskaya Square has not been preserved. Many of us have heard about 300 Spartans who fought against thousands of Persian troops. But who knows about the Ikan battle, which lasted three days from December 4 to December 6, 1864? A hundred Ural Cossacks, more precisely 118 people, under the command of Yesaul V.R. Serova took the battle near the village of Ikan with the twenty thousandth army of the Kokand Khan Mulla-Alimkul. 57 Cossacks remained forever near Ikan, but the Kokand people were not allowed into the ancient city of Turkestan. About 2000 Kokandians died. It is only 20 miles from Ikan to Turkestan, so that it would be with the old people, women and children of the city - it’s even scary to imagine. When, after the approach of the Russian troops and the withdrawal of the raid participants, they began to collect the corpses of the Ural Cossacks from the battlefield, they were all beheaded and mutilated. But the Kokand people did not attack South Kazakhstan anymore. We lose the memory of our ancestors, their heroic deeds, we become mankurts who do not remember kinship.
There is no Ikanskaya Square and Ikansky Boulevard in Uralsk. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Golden Church, erected on Ikanskaya Square, has survived only to this day.In 1918, on the Ikansky field, behind the Golden Church, they began to bury the Cossacks who died in battles with the Red Guards. This is how the cemetery, called Bratsk, appeared. But if we usually imagine a mass grave as one large one, then after the burial of the Cossacks, small mounds and simple wooden crosses remained in the cemetery. After that, the dead Red Army soldiers, who died of starvation and typhus, who died in hospitals during the Great Patriotic War, were buried here. And then instead of a cemetery they made a stadium. Stadium in the cemetery The dead have no shame ...
And so the Ural Cossacks participated in many wars waged by the Russian Empire: in the Italian and Swiss campaigns of A.V. war, the First World War, when 5378 Ural Cossacks and officers were awarded St. George's crosses and medals for valor and courage.
Before the revolution, Dostyk-Druzhby Avenue was called Bolshaya Mikhailovskaya Street, which actually became the backbone of the developing city. If in the 17th century the city ended at the site of the current Pugachevskaya Square, then the earthen rampart moved several times due to the expansion of the city, until it was completely torn down.
But before that, the city of Uralsk almost ceased to exist. On June 11, 1807, a terrible fire broke out in the city, which destroyed almost two-thirds of it. Of the 3584 houses, 2120 burned down, and two churches burned down - Peter and Paul and Kazan. After all, the city was almost all wooden. A cunning plan arose in the head of the Orenburg Governor-General G.S. Volkonsky. Uralsk is full of firebrands, people are in shock, and Volkonsky sends a document to St. Petersburg called "On the transformation of the Ural army." In it, he proposed to destroy the city of Uralsk, to resettle people. They say it will be cheaper than restoring the city, and the violent temper of the Ural Cossacks is tired of calming down. July 16, 1807, in theory, should be celebrated as the day of the new birth of Uralsk, on this day a meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Russian Empire was held, at which the project to liquidate the city was rejected.
The fire played a strangely positive role, a general plan of the city was drawn up, the streets were straightened. In 1821 there was another terrible fire, after which in 1821 the position of the chief city architect appeared, to which the Italian architect Michele Delmedino was invited from St. Petersburg. The organization of development from Pugachev Square to Abay Square is mostly his merit, although he stayed in Uralsk for only 10 years (1821-1831).
He was one of the first to build a house for Dmitry Mizinov, the commander of one of the regiments of the Suvorov miraculous heroes.
At the same time, the Ataman's House was rebuilt,Then other houses were built for the Ural Cossack army: the military office, here he worked in the archive of the Ural Cossack army from June to September 1900 Vissarion Galaktionovich Korolenko
first museum and library, military hospital First hospital of the Ural Cossack army.But not only the military played a big role in life, merchants began to build stone dwellings. Among them, once the largest house in Uralsk, the House of Merchants near the Old Bazaar,
A zest in the house of the foreman of the commercial collection, The store and the house of a fashionable merchant, The building of the Old Believer merchant, Unknown Karev's house. In 1846, Uralsk was classified as a large city, becoming a major trading center.Before the revolution, there were at least three hotels whose buildings have survived to this day: the merchant Korotin, "Kazan"
and "Russia".In 1915, there were 517 educational institutions in the Ural Cossack army, not counting private schools run by the so-called masters and craftswomen. All secondary educational institutions, as well as the religious school, the Russian-Kyrgyz (before the revolution, the Kazakhs were called Kyrgyz in government documents) craft school and the music school of Uralsk are described in the materials: Second Women's Gymnasium, Forge of priests and revolutionaries turned into a hotel, And the former owner of the house killed for looking too intelligent, Gymnasium closed by the revolution, From gymnasium girls to university students, Museum of the History of Uralsk,. Outwardly, the most attractive building among schools is the former Russian-Kyrgyz school.
It was located behind the Red Gate.If the first two pharmacies belonged to foreigners, the King of Medicines and Tablets, the namesake of the author of Viennese waltzes, then the third pharmacy store was opened by a local native Kompaneets and was located on the first floor of the southern wing of the Commercial Bank.
And his nephew Zinoviy Kompaneets, who served as his errand, became a famous Soviet songwriter who wrote the song "Cossack Cavalry".There were two banks in pre-revolutionary Uralsk
The immediate reason for which was the punishments and arrests carried out by the commission of inquiry of General Traubenberg.
The dissatisfaction of the Yaik Cossacks with the government's policy of eliminating the old liberties of the troops accumulated throughout the 18th century. With the subordination of the Yaitsky army to the Military Collegium and the abolition of the election of atamans and foremen, a split occurred in the army into the foreman and military sides. The split deepened after the introduction in 1754 of the state salt monopoly and the beginning of abuses of salt tax farmers from among the military elite. In 1771, during the escape of the Kalmyks from Russia, ordinary Cossacks refused to obey the order of the Orenburg Governor-General to go in pursuit.
Direct disobedience to the military order, as well as a large number of petitions sent with complaints from both the foremen and military parties, forced the Governor-General Reinsdorp to send an investigation commission headed by Major General I.I. Davydov to the Yaitsky town. (also in the commission were generals Potapov, Cherepov, Brachfeld), later replaced by General Traubenberg, accompanied by a detachment of government troops under the command of Guard Captain Durnovo (Durnov, Durov) S.D ..
General Davydov ordered the arrest of 43 Cossacks, recognized by him as instigators. After corporal punishment, they were ordered to shave their beards (for the Yaik Old Believers - the worst punishment) and send them to the infantry regiments of the army on the front of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774. . When escorting those arrested to Orenburg, the Cossacks of the military side attacked the convoy and recaptured 23 of their comrades. It was decided to send a delegation of Cossacks to St. Petersburg, headed by the centurion Kirpichnikov. The delegation stayed in the capital for more than six months, petitions were submitted to counts Zakhar Chernyshev and Grigory Orlov, as well as to the empress herself, but the result was only an order to arrest the complainants, 6 out of 20 people were arrested, the rest, led by the Kirpichnikovs, hastily fled from the capital to the Yaitsky town.
The proceedings and punishments carried out by General Traubenberg, as well as the order to arrest the petitioners who returned from St. Petersburg, led by the centurion I. Kirpichnikov, caused an outburst of indignation among the Cossacks. After Traubenberg on January 13 ordered a volley of cannons to be fired at the crowd gathered near the military office, an armed clash with a government detachment took place, during which Traubenberg, the military ataman P. Tambovtsev and soldiers of the Durnovo detachment were killed, the latter was seriously wounded. The participants in the uprising at the assembled military circle elected new foremen at the circle. Delegations of Cossacks were sent to Catherine II, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, Governor-General I. A. Reinsdorp, Kazan Metropolitan Veniamin, who tried to explain the speech by significant abuses of the foremen's side and the injustice of the commission of inquiry. Requests were sent to return the election of atamans and foremen in order to be able to remove unwanted and stealing from their posts, to issue delayed salaries, to transfer troops from the subordination of the Military Collegium to the authority of individual royal confidants (for example, the Orlovs).
Attempts were made to hastily strengthen the army militarily. By the time of the uprising, all the artillery of the Yaitsky Cossacks was dispersed among the fortresses and outposts of the border line along the Ural River, the Military Chancellery issued an order to send half of the entire composition of the Cossack garrisons to the Yaitsky city, as well as all the guns. In addition, most of the serfs who were in the Army and resettled were recorded in the Cossacks. Along the entire border line, the former atamans of the fortresses were removed from their posts, and new ones from among the rebels were appointed. For military needs, the money of the arrested representatives of the foremen's side was confiscated, and fines were imposed on those who remained at large. Horses were also confiscated. Nevertheless, there were not enough weapons, many Cossacks carried only pikes, bows and edged weapons.
At the same time, most of the preparations took place randomly and inconsistently, some of the Cossacks advocated the need to continue attempts to negotiate with the authorities, some - for more decisive action, the execution of the arrested foremen. The composition of the Military Chancellery was constantly changing, as a result of which some of the orders were canceled, and then issued again.
On May 15, 1772, the Orenburg Corps was sent against the rebels under the command of Major General F. Yu. Freiman. On June 3-4, the rebels under the command of I. Ponomarev, I. Ulyanov, I. Zarubin-Chiki were defeated by government troops on the Embulatovka River (near the present village of Rubezhka), 60 versts from the Yaitsky town.
Defeated, the returning Cossacks urged them to leave the Yaitsky town and move south towards the Persian border. The convoys with most of the population crossed the Chagan, but on June 6, the tsarist troops entered the Yaitsky town and, by decisive actions, prevented the destruction of the crossing. After negotiations and calls to return without fear, most of the inhabitants of the Yaitsky town returned to their homes.
As a result of the defeat of the uprising, gatherings of military circles were prohibited, the military office was liquidated, a garrison of government troops was stationed in the Yaik town, and all power passed into the hands of its commandant I. D. Simonov. Some of the captive instigators were executed, many were stigmatized, some of the sentenced had their tongues pulled out, 85 people were sentenced to eternal hard labor. Most of the Cossacks, after the defeat of the uprising, managed to take refuge in distant farms between the Volga and Yaik rivers, on the Uzen, almost all of them became active participants in the Pugachev army a year later.
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The Yaik Cossack uprising of 1772 (January 13, June 6) is a spontaneous uprising of the Cossacks of the Yaitsky army, the immediate cause of which was the punishments and arrests carried out by the commission of inquiry of General Traubenberg. Discontent ... ... Wikipedia
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The main cause of popular unrest, including the uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev, was the strengthening of serfdom and the growth of exploitation of all sections of the black population. The Cossacks were unhappy with the government's attack on their traditional privileges and rights. The indigenous peoples of the Volga and Ural regions experienced harassment both from the authorities and from the actions of Russian landowners and industrialists. Wars, famine, epidemics also contributed to popular uprisings. (For example, the Moscow plague riot of 1771 arose as a result of an epidemic of plague brought from the fronts of the Russian-Turkish war.)
MANIFESTO OF "AMPERATOR"
“The autocratic emperor, our great sovereign, Peter Fedorovich of All Russia and others ... In my personal decree, the Yaik army is depicted: how you, my friends, served the former kings to the drop of your blood ... so you will serve me, the great sovereign, for your fatherland Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich ... Wake me, the great sovereign, complained: Cossacks and Kalmyks and Tatars. And which I ... were wine ... in all wines I forgive and favor you: from the top and to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salaries, and lead, and gunpowder, and grain rulers.
IMPOSTERS
In September 1773, the Yaik Cossacks could hear this manifesto "by the miracle of the saved Tsar Peter III." The shadow of "Peter III" in the previous 11 years has repeatedly appeared in Russia. Some daredevils were called Sovereign Pyotr Fedorovich, announced that they wanted, following the freedom of the nobility, to give free rein to the serfs and to favor the Cossacks, working people and all other ordinary people, but the nobles set out to kill them, and they had to hide for the time being. These impostors quickly fell into the Secret Expedition, opened under Catherine II to replace the disbanded office of secret search affairs, and their life was cut short on the chopping block. But soon the living “Peter III” appeared somewhere on the outskirts, and the people grabbed hold of the rumor about the new “miraculous salvation of the emperor.” Of all the impostors, only one, the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, managed to kindle the flames of the peasant war and lead the merciless war of the common people against the masters for the "peasant kingdom".
At his headquarters and on the battlefield near Orenburg, Pugachev played the “royal role” perfectly. He issued decrees not only on his own behalf, but also on behalf of the “son and heir” of Paul. Often, in public, Yemelyan Ivanovich took out a portrait of the Grand Duke and, looking at him, said with tears: “Oh, I feel sorry for Pavel Petrovich, lest the accursed villains torment him!” And on another occasion, the impostor declared: “I myself no longer want to reign, but I will restore the Tsarevich Sovereign to the kingdom.”
"Tsar Peter III" tried to bring order to the rebellious people's element. The rebels were divided into "regiments" headed by "officers" elected or appointed by Pugachev. At 5 versts from Orenburg, in Berd, he made his bet. Under the emperor, a “guard” was formed from his guard. Pugachev's decrees were affixed with the "great state seal". Under the "king" there was a Military Collegium, which concentrated military, administrative and judicial power.
Even Pugachev showed his associates birthmarks - at that time everyone was convinced that the kings had "special royal signs" on their bodies. A red caftan, an expensive hat, a saber and a determined look completed the image of the "sovereign". Although Emelyan Ivanovich's appearance was unremarkable: he was a Cossack of about thirty years old, of medium height, swarthy, his hair was cut in a circle, his face was framed by a small black beard. But he was such a "king" as the peasant's fantasy wanted to see the king: dashing, insanely brave, sedate, formidable and quick to judge the "traitors". He executed and complained...
Executed landowners and officers. Complained to ordinary people. For example, the artisan Afanasy Sokolov, nicknamed Khlopusha, appeared in his camp, seeing the “tsar”, he fell to his feet and confessed: he, Khlopusha, was in an Orenburg prison, but was released by Governor Reinsdorf, promising to kill Pugachev for money. "Amperor Peter III" forgives Khlopusha, and even appoints him a colonel. Khlopusha soon became famous as a decisive and successful leader. Pugachev promoted another national leader, Chika-Zarubin, to the earl and called him nothing more than "Ivan Nikiforovich Chernyshev."
Among those granted soon were working people who arrived at Pugachev and ascribed mining peasants, as well as the rebellious Bashkirs, led by a noble young hero-poet Salavat Yulaev. The “king” returned their lands to the Bashkirs. The Bashkirs began to set fire to Russian factories built in their region, while the villages of Russian settlers were destroyed, the inhabitants were cut out almost without exception.
EGG COSSACKS
The uprising began on Yaik, which was no coincidence. The unrest began in January 1772, when the Yaitsky Cossacks with icons and banners came to their "capital" Yaitsky town to ask the tsarist general to remove the ataman who was oppressing them and part of the foreman and restore the former privileges of the Yaitsky Cossacks.
The government at that time fairly pressed the Cossacks of Yaik. Their role as border guards has declined; Cossacks began to be torn away from home, sending them on long trips; the election of atamans and commanders was abolished as early as the 1740s; at the mouth of the Yaik, fishermen set up, by royal permission, barriers that made it difficult for fish to move up the river, which painfully hit one of the main Cossack trades - fishing.
In the town of Yaik, the procession of the Cossacks was shot. The soldier corps, which arrived a little later, suppressed the Cossack indignation, the instigators were executed, the "disobedient Cossacks" fled and hid. But there was no calmness on Yaik, the Cossack region still resembled a powder magazine. The spark that blew him up was Pugachev.
THE BEGINNING OF PUGACHEV
On September 17, 1773, he read out his first manifesto to 80 Cossacks. On the next day, he already had 200 supporters, and on the third - 400. On October 5, 1773, Emelyan Pugachev, with 2.5 thousand associates, began the siege of Orenburg.
While "Peter III" was going to Orenburg, the news of him spread throughout the country. It was whispered in the peasant huts how everywhere the "emperor" was greeted with "bread and salt", the bells solemnly hummed in his honor, the Cossacks and soldiers of the garrisons of small border fortresses without a fight open the gates and go over to his side, the "blood-sucking nobles" "tsar" without he executes delays, and favors the rebels with their things. First, some brave men, and then whole crowds of serfs from the Volga, ran to Pugachev in his camp near Orenburg.
PUGACHEV AT ORENBURG
Orenburg was a well-fortified provincial city, it was defended by 3 thousand soldiers. Pugachev stood near Orenburg for 6 months, but failed to take it. However, the army of the rebels grew, at some moments of the uprising its number reached 30 thousand people.
Major General Kar hurried to the rescue of besieged Orenburg with troops loyal to Catherine II. But his one and a half thousand detachment was defeated. The same thing happened with the military team of Colonel Chernyshev. The remnants of government troops retreated to Kazan and caused panic there among the local nobles. The nobles had already heard about the ferocious reprisals of Pugachev and began to scatter, leaving their houses and property.
The situation was becoming serious. Catherine, in order to maintain the spirit of the Volga nobles, declared herself a "Kazan landowner." Troops began to gather in Orenburg. They needed a commander-in-chief - a talented and energetic person. Catherine II for the sake of benefit could give up her convictions. It was at this decisive moment at the court ball that the empress turned to A.I. Bibikov, whom she did not like for his closeness to her son Pavel and "constitutional dreams", and with an affectionate smile asked him to become the commander-in-chief of the army. Bibikov replied that he had devoted himself to the service of the fatherland and, of course, accepted the appointment. Catherine's hopes were justified. On March 22, 1774, in a 6-hour battle near the Tatishcheva fortress, Bibikov defeated the best forces of Pugachev. 2 thousand Pugachevites were killed, 4 thousand wounded or surrendered, 36 guns were captured from the rebels. Pugachev was forced to lift the siege of Orenburg. The rebellion seemed to be crushed...
But in the spring of 1774, the second part of the Pugachev drama began. Pugachev moved east: to Bashkiria and the mining Urals. When he approached the Trinity Fortress, the easternmost point of the rebel advance, there were 10,000 men in his army. The uprising was overwhelmed by robbery elements. The Pugachevites burned factories, took away cattle and other property from bonded peasants and working people, destroyed officials, clerks, captured "masters" without pity, sometimes in the most savage way. Some of the commoners joined the detachments of Pugachev's colonels, others huddled in detachments around the factory owners, who distributed weapons to their people in order to protect them and their lives and property.
PUGACHEV IN THE VOLGA REGION
Pugachev's army grew at the expense of detachments of the Volga peoples - Udmurts, Mari, Chuvashs. Since November 1773, the manifestoes of "Peter III" called on the serfs to crack down on the landowners - "disturbers of the empire and the ruins of the peasants", and the nobles "to take the houses and all their estates as a reward."
On July 12, 1774, the emperor took Kazan with a 20,000-strong army. But the government garrison locked itself in the Kazan Kremlin. The tsarist troops, led by Michelson, arrived to help him. On July 17, 1774, Mikhelson defeated the Pugachevites. "Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich" fled to the right bank of the Volga, and there the peasant war unfolded again on a large scale. The Pugachev Manifesto on July 31, 1774 gave the serfs freedom and "liberated" the peasants from all duties. Insurgent detachments arose everywhere, which acted at their own peril and risk, often out of touch with each other. Interestingly, the rebels usually smashed the estates not of their owners, but of neighboring landowners. Pugachev with the main forces moved to the Lower Volga. He easily took small towns. Detachments of barge haulers, Volga, Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks stuck to him. The powerful fortress of Tsaritsyn stood in the way of the rebels. Under the walls of Tsaritsyn in August 1774, the Pugachevites suffered a major defeat. The thinned detachments of the rebels began to retreat back to where they came from - to the South Urals. Pugachev himself with a group of Yaik Cossacks swam to the left bank of the Volga.
On September 12, 1774, former comrades-in-arms betrayed their leader. "Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich" turned into a runaway rebel Pugach. The angry shouts of Emelyan Ivanovich no longer worked: “Who are you knitting? After all, if I don’t do anything to you, then my son, Pavel Petrovich, will not leave a single person of you alive! The bound "king" was on horseback and taken to the Yaitsky town and handed over to an officer there.
Commander-in-Chief Bibikov was no longer alive. He died in the midst of the suppression of the riot. The new commander-in-chief Pyotr Panin (younger brother of the tutor Tsarevich Pavel) had a headquarters in Simbirsk. Mikhelson ordered Pugachev to be sent there. He was escorted by the illustrious commander of Catherine, recalled from the Turkish war. Pugachev was taken in a wooden cage on a two-wheeled cart.
Meanwhile, Pugachev's comrades-in-arms, who had not yet laid down their arms, spread a rumor that the arrested Pugachev had nothing to do with "Tsar Peter III". Some peasants sighed with relief: “Thank God! Some Pugach was caught, and Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich is free! But in general, the forces of the rebels were undermined. In 1775, the last centers of resistance in the forested Bashkiria and the Volga region were extinguished, and the echoes of the Pugachev rebellion in Ukraine were suppressed.
A.S. PUSHKIN. "HISTORY OF PUGACHEV"
“Suvorov did not leave him. In the village of Mostakh (one hundred and forty miles from Samara) there was a fire near the hut where Pugachev spent the night. They let him out of his cage, tied him to a cart with his son, a frisky and courageous boy, and all night long; Suvorov himself guarded them. In Kosporye, against Samara, at night, in wave weather, Suvorov crossed the Volga and arrived in Simbirsk at the beginning of October ... Pugachev was brought directly to the courtyard to Count Panin, who met him on the porch ... "Who are you?" he asked the impostor. “Emelyan Ivanov Pugachev,” he answered. “How dare you, yur, call yourself a sovereign?” Panin continued. - “I'm not a raven,” Pugachev objected, playing with words and speaking, as usual, allegorically. "I am a crow, and a crow is still flying." Panin, noticing that Pugachev’s insolence had amazed the people crowding around the palace, hit the impostor in the face until he bled and tore out a tuft of his beard ... "
MASSACRES AND EXECUTIONS
The victory of the government troops was accompanied by atrocities no less than Pugachev did against the nobles. The enlightened empress concluded that "in the present case, the execution is necessary for the good of the empire." Prone to constitutional dreams, Pyotr Panin realized the call of the autocrat. Thousands of people were executed without trial or investigation. On all the roads of the rebellious region, corpses were scattered, put up for edification. It was impossible to count the peasants punished with whips, batogs, whips. Many had their noses or ears cut off.
Emelyan Pugachev laid his head on the chopping block on January 10, 1775, with a large gathering of people on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. Before his death, Emelyan Ivanovich bowed to the cathedrals and said goodbye to the people, repeating in a broken voice: “Forgive me, Orthodox people; let me go, in which I was rude before you. Together with Pugachev, several of his associates were hanged. The famous ataman Chika was taken to Ufa for execution. Salavat Yulaev ended up in hard labor. Pugachevism is over...
Pugachev did not bring relief to the peasants. The government's course towards the peasants hardened, and the scope of serfdom expanded. By decree of May 3, 1783, the peasants of the Left-bank and Sloboda Ukraine passed into serfdom. Peasants here were deprived of the right to transfer from one owner to another. In 1785, the Cossack foreman received the rights of the Russian nobility. Even earlier, in 1775, the free Zaporozhian Sich was destroyed. The Cossacks were resettled in the Kuban, where they formed the Cossack Kuban army. The landlords of the Volga region and other regions did not reduce dues, corvee and other peasant duties. All this was exacted with the same severity.
“Mother Catherine” wanted the memory of Pugachev to be erased. She even ordered to rename the river where the rebellion began: and Yaik became the Urals. The Yaitsky Cossacks and the Yaitsky town were ordered to be called Ural. The village of Zimoveyskaya, the birthplace of Stenka Razin and Emelyan Pugachev, was christened in a new way - Potemkinskaya. However, Pugach was remembered by the people. The old people seriously told that Emelyan Ivanovich was a revived Razin, and he would return more than once to the Don; songs sounded throughout Russia and legends about the formidable "emperor and his children" circulated.
Yaitsky town (city of Yaik, Yaitsk) is the administrative center of the Yaitsky Cossack army.
It received its name from the Yaik River, on the right bank of which it was founded in 1613. After the formation of the Orenburg province, it was subordinate to the Military Collegium and the provincial office. After the suppression of the Cossack uprising in 1772, a garrison of the 6th and 7th light field teams (approximately 1000 people), as well as a detachment of one and a half hundred Orenburg Cossacks, was stationed here. The garrison was led by Lieutenant Colonel I.D. Simonov; he was also in charge of the Yaik commandant's office, which controlled the Cossack army, performing affairs that were previously under the jurisdiction of the military ataman and his office. The "leading" military Cossack foremen M.M. Borodin and N.A. Mostovshchikov were introduced into the composition of the commandant's office as advisers.
On the eve of the Pugachev uprising in the Yaitsky town there were 2526 households, in which 2998 employees (combatants) and retired Cossacks lived with their families. As a result of internecine strife that flared up on Yaik from the beginning of the 1760s, the Cossack army was divided into two opposing parties or parties: the foremen (or "obedient", "loyal") and "rebellious" or "disobedient". Many of the "rebellious" Cossacks took part in the uprising of 1772 and were repressed by the authorities. A year later, these same Cossacks acted as skirmishers of the Pugachev uprising and became the most combat-ready force in the ranks of the rebel army (10).
Having led the uprising that began on September 17, 1773, Pugachev on the morning of September 18 with a detachment of 300 Cossacks approached the Yaik town, but was stopped by the garrison at the bridge over the Chagan River. The next day, he again approached him, but, having no artillery with him, he did not dare to storm. Having replenished the army with dozens of Cossack defectors, Pugachev set off on the right bank of the Yaik to the east, to Orenburg. In the same direction, the consolidated detachment of Prime Major S.L. Naumov went to the aid of the provincial center. The departure of this detachment significantly weakened the garrison, and Simonov in October 1773 found it expedient to move to a previously arranged "retrenchment" - an earthen fortress.
On December 30, the Cossack detachment of the Pugachev ataman M.P. Tolkachev entered the Yaitsky town, who immediately began the siege of Simonov's "Kremlin". At the beginning of January 1774, a detachment of ataman A.A. Ovchinnikov approached here, and Pugachev himself came after him. He took over the leadership of military operations against the besieged city fortress, but after an unsuccessful assault on January 20, he returned to his army near Orenburg. At the very end of January, Pugachev reappeared in Yaitsky town. Here he married on February 1, taking as his wife a young Cossack Ustinya Kuznetsova. She and the "court staff" were settled in the house of the former military ataman A.N. Borodin. Soon after the wedding, Pugachev, reviving the basic norm of Cossack self-government, ordered a Cossack circle to be convened to select a military ataman and foremen. On this circle, the rebel Cossacks elected the troops of N.A. Kargin as chieftain, and A.P. Perfilyev and I.A. Fofanov as foremen (11). In the second half of February and early March 1774, Pugachev again ran into the Yaitsky town, making attempts to take possession of the besieged fortress. He led the attacks on her, beat off the sorties of her defenders. On February 9, the bell tower of the Mikhailovsky Cathedral, the citadel of the defense of Simonov's "retrenchment", was blown up and destroyed by an explosion of a mine tunnel. The defending garrison, at the cost of great efforts and losses, managed to defend the fortress and wait for the arrival of military assistance (12).
On April 15, the brigade of General P.D. Mansurov, 70 miles from the Yaitsky town, defeated the detachments of atamans Ovchinnikov and Perfilyev, and a day later entered the town itself. On the eve of the entry, the traitorous Cossacks, having heard about Mansurov's victory in the battle near Bykovka, seized the atamans Kargin, Tolkachev and other prominent Pugachevites, the "Empress" Ustinya with her relatives and delivered them to the fortress. The regime of brutal repressions established by Mansurov and Simonov was accompanied by torture and executions of the rebels. Since August 1774, the Secret Commission operated here, conducting an investigation and trial of the Pugachevites. In this commission, Mavrin interrogated Pugachev on September 16; then and in the following days, he conducted an investigation of the captured Cossacks from the last Pugachev detachment.
Judging by the report of Simonov, at the end of that year, 2345 Cossacks lived in the Yaik town - employees and retirees, not counting their family members (13). Wanting to forever destroy the memory of Pugachev and the uprising he raised on the banks of the Yaik, Catherine II, by decree of January 15, 1775, ordered to rename the Yaik River to the Urals, the Yaitsky Cossack army - to the Ural, and the Yaitsky town - to Uralsk.
During his stay in Uralsk on September 21-23, 1833, Pushkin examined the sights of the former Yaitsky town, met and talked with elderly contemporaries and participants in the Pugachev uprising (see the article Uralsk).
Yaitsky town and the events that took place in it are mentioned in the "History of Pugachev" and draft fragments of its manuscript (1). Information about him is contained in the sources used by Pushkin: archival preparations for the History (2), a letter from Captain A.P. Krylov dated May 15, 1774 (3), P.I. Rychkov’s Chronicle and Pushkin’s abstract (4 ), "Orenburg records" (5), records of the testimony of I.A. Krylov (6). Yaitsky town is mentioned in the memoirs of I.I. Osipov (7), I.S. Polyansky (8) and M.N. Pekarsky (9), who fell into the hands of Pushkin in 1835-1836.
Notes:
1. Pushkin. T.IX. p.5, 8-11, 13-18, 21, 24, 27, 34, 36, 37, 40, 43, 45, 46, 49, 51-54, 60, 69, 71, 77, 81, 89, 90, 99, 100, 146, 154, 177, 181, 182, 188, 189, 191, 196-198, 402, 406-408, 413, 416, 418, 426, 433, 434, 438, 444, 446, 447, 451, 453, 464;
2. Ibid. 501-504, 513, 517, 524, 527, 529-531, 617, 619, 620, 635, 645, 647, 654, 656, 657, 693, 694, 700, 717, 774, 778, 780, 781;
3. Ibid. 537, 538-540, 543, 545-551;
4. Ibid. 207, 208, 210-212, 221, 247, 260, 261, 263, 267, 274, 283-286, 292-296, 298, 306, 307, 309, 310, 318, 319, 322, 339, 341, 344, 353, 354, 759, 760, 766, 777;
5. Ibid. pp. 496, 497;
6. Ibid. S.492;
7. Ibid. pp. 551, 555, 575, 578;
8. Ibid. pp. 579-585, 590, 597;
9. Ibid. pp. 598-601, 604-606, 609, 612-615;
10. Report of Colonel H.Kh. Bilov to the Orenburg Governor I.A. Reinsdorp dated August 12, 1772 - RGADA. F.1100. D.1. L.310; Census of the Yaik Cossacks, conducted in September 1772 - RGVIA. F.8. Op.4. D.1536. L.531; Report of Colonel I.D. Simonov to General-in-Chief P.I. Panin dated January 18, 1775 - RGADA. F.1274. D.195. L.165-165v.;
11. Documents of the headquarters of E.I. Pugachev, rebel authorities and institutions. 1773-1774 M., 1975. S.104-108;
12. Chebotarev V.A. Yaitsky town in the XVIII century. // Peasant war in Russia XVII-XVIII centuries: problems, searches, solutions. M., 1974. S. 116-121;
13. RGADA. F.1274. D.195. L.165-165 rev.
Chagan tower- a wooden tower built in the 1730s. in the Yaik town, on the eastern bank of the Chagan river.
In February 1774, the Pugachevites dismantled this tower, transported the logs closer to the besieged "retrenchment" and began to build a high peal (platform) for a cannon battery. However, they failed to complete the work: during a sortie undertaken on March 9, 1774, the soldiers burned the unfinished peal along with the Cossack huts surrounding it.
The Chagan Tower is mentioned in a letter from the captain of the Yaitsky garrison, A.P. Krylov, dated May 15, 1774 (1); Pushkin used the journal publication of this letter in the text of Pugachev's History.
Notes:
1. Pushkin. T.IX. S.544, 545.
Chagan side(Cheganskaya) - the northern part of the Yaitsky town, adjoining the eastern bank of the Chagan River.
On December 30, 1773, it was occupied by a detachment of ataman M.P. Tolkachev. Until mid-April 1774, the local garrison, which settled in the city fortress, was repeatedly attacked by the Pugachevites from both the Chagan and Kuren sides. On March 14, 1774, the Pugachevites made an attempt to persuade the besieged garrison to capitulate, sending I.D. Simonov, who led the defense of the fortress, E.I. Pugachev’s personal decree tied to the tail of a paper kite launched from the Chagan side (2).
The Chagan side is mentioned in Pushkin's archival preparations for Pugachev's History (1).
Yaik Cossack uprising of 1772(January 13 - June 6) - spontaneous performance of the Cossacks of the Yaitsky army, the immediate reason for which was the punishments and arrests carried out by the commission of inquiry of generals Davydov and Traubenberg.
| Yaik Cossack uprising of 1772 | |
|---|---|
| date of | January 13 (24) - June 6 (17) |
| A place | Yaitsky town and its environs |
| Outcome | Suppression of the uprising |
| Opponents | |
The Yaik Cossacks, who for a long time enjoyed relative autonomy due to their remoteness from the center of the Muscovite kingdom, entered into a series of conflicts with the politics of the Russian Empire during the 18th century. The Petersburg authorities consistently limited the independence of the troops in matters of the internal organization of the life of the Cossacks. The curtailment of the foundations of democratic government, the abolition of the election of atamans and foremen led to the division of the army into two unequal irreconcilable parts. Most of the Cossacks, the so-called "military side", stood up for the return of the old order, while the "senior side", which abused power due to the abolition of elections, supported government policy. In 1769-1771, the refusal to send Cossacks to serve in regular military units and the refusal to go in pursuit of the Kalmyks who rebelled and left Russia led to the dispatch of a government commission of inquiry to Yaitsky town. Attempts to carry out punishments caused a spontaneous rebuff of the Cossacks of the military side. In January 1772, the confrontation turned into an open riot. On January 13, the head of the commission of inquiry, General Traubenberg, ordered to open fire on a crowd of Cossacks on the streets of the Yaitsky town, demanding that their demands be considered. More than 100 people were killed - men, women and children. In response, the Cossacks attacked the government detachment, killed Traubenberg, many of his officers and soldiers, as well as the ataman of the army and some foremen.
Power in the rebel army passed to the chosen military representatives. The Cossacks could not come to a consensus on their further actions. Moderate-minded called for a compromise with the government, radical-minded - to stand on the complete independence of the troops. Convinced of the impossibility of bringing the Yaik army back to submission through negotiations, the government of Catherine II ordered the dispatch of a military expedition to Yaik in May under the command of General Freiman. On June 3-4, 1772, the Cossacks were defeated in the battles near the Embulatovka River on the border of the troops. With decisive actions, Freiman returned most of the Cossacks who left the Yaitsky town with their families, but many instigators of the uprising were able to take refuge in distant farms and in the steppe between the Yaik and Volga rivers. A government garrison was stationed in the Yaitsky town, and an investigation began, which lasted almost a year. The projects of a cruel sentence to the main participants in the uprising in the spring of 1773 again stirred up the rebellious moods that had subsided among the Yaik Cossacks. And although Catherine II significantly softened the provisions of the sentence, the Cossacks did not accept their defeat and were looking for a reason for a new performance, which soon presented itself to them with the appearance of the impostor Pugachev.
Yaik Cossack army on the eve of the uprising
The dissatisfaction of the Yaik Cossacks with the government's policy of eliminating the old liberties of the troops accumulated throughout the 18th century. In previous decades, the Yaik army retained its autonomy and self-government due to its remoteness and almost abandonment on the distant Asian borders of the Russian state, representing a buffer between the Kazakhs, Nogays, Kalmyks, Bashkirs, and Tatars. This forced the Cossacks to pursue their own policy, dictated by their own interests. The periods when the Cossacks were forced to repel the raids of the steppes were replaced by periods when the Yaik Cossacks themselves undertook campaigns with the aim of robbing camps and caravans. Under these conditions, the election of atamans and the democratic principles of the life of the Cossacks ensured the stability and survival of the troops. But the times of the undivided economy of the Cossacks on Yaik were over by the beginning of the 18th century. The Russian state began to intervene more and more actively both in the internal structure of the life of the Cossacks, subordinating the Yaik army to the Military Collegium, and in the main craft on Yaik - fishing. In the first half of the century, commissions were sent to Yaik one after another to census the Cossacks and search for fugitives. “Regularity” is introduced - the staff of the army, the procedure for paying salaries are determined, the election of atamans and foremen is actually abolished. There was a split in the army into the foremen's and military sides. The split deepened after the introduction in 1754 of the state salt monopoly and the beginning of abuses of salt tax farmers from among the military elite.
As a result, the investigative commission of General Davydov decided to recognize more than 2 thousand Cossacks as guilty of "disobedience" at once, of which 43 were the main troublemakers. A verdict was sent to the Military Collegium in St. Petersburg for approval, stating that 43 "callers" should be punished with gauntlets "after a thousand people ten times and sent to the army," which in fact could be recognized as the death penalty. The rest of the Cossacks found guilty "should be dressed up in remote teams without a queue three times." The verdict shocked the Cossacks, of those sentenced to gauntlets, only 20 people managed to detain, 23 Cossacks managed to escape. The rest decided to send a deputation of twenty Cossacks, headed by centurion Ivan Kirpichnikov, to Petersburg. In the petition handed to Kirpichnikov, all the grievances and injustices of recent years were listed. On June 28, 1771, the Cossacks managed to file a complaint with Catherine II. The wait for a response dragged on for months. The Cossacks re-submitted a complaint to Count Grigory Orlov, then they got an appointment with the President of the Military Collegium, Count Z. Chernyshev. As the Cossacks later said, the latter, in response to complaints, became furious and hit Kirpichnikov so much that he "deprived him of his life", drove the rest away, ordering before that to be whipped. Only at the beginning of December 1771, Catherine, in an order to the chief prosecutor of the Senate, Prince A. Vyazemsky, wrote that the complaint of the Cossacks was “filled with many lies and slander”, that they also slandered Count Chernyshev, that the petitioners “are the very rogues who, for their own self-interest, inflate internecine unrest on Yaik. However, the draft sentence for the Cossacks was slightly softened - according to it, 43 Cossacks, among which Kirpichnikov's name was also included, were to "cut off their beards and send them to serve in the regiments of the Second Army for writing", for the rest there were three extraordinary outfits in distant teams .
A delegation of the Yaik Cossacks was summoned to the Military Collegium, where they were given a confirmation of the verdict of General Davydov. Finding out that their complaint was ignored, the Cossacks hurried to leave the building of the Military Collegium, leaving a package with an approved verdict "upon leaving the Collegiate Hall." Upon learning of this, Chernyshev ordered to catch up with the petitioners and arrest them, but only six of them managed to capture. The rest, led by Kirpichnikov, dressed in a "Yamskoye dress" hurried to secretly leave St. Petersburg and headed for Yaik, arriving in the Yaitsky town in early January 1772.
The beginning of the uprising
General Traubenberg, who replaced Davydov as head of the commission of inquiry in December 1771, did not wait for the verdict from St. Petersburg and ordered the immediate restoration of order in the Yaik army. As a matter of priority, he ordered the arrest of the seven most "disobedient" Cossacks and, after being punished with whips, sent to Orenburg to be enrolled in an army regiment. But during the escort, 40 miles from the city, mounted Cossacks attacked the guard and recaptured six of those arrested. The convoy was forced to return to Yaitsky town with the remaining prisoner, reporting to Traubenberg that about two hundred Cossacks participated in the attack, from whom they "forced to shoot back." Traubenberg announced that the army had rebelled and sent a message to Orenburg demanding that an additional team be sent to conduct trial and punishment. Many of the Cossacks of the "disobedient" side preferred to leave the city and take refuge for a while in distant farms.
At the same time, on the morning of January 9, the deputies who had fled from St. Petersburg, headed by Kirpichnikov, returned to the Yaitsky town. As one of Traubenberg's officers later reported: "As soon as the centurion Kirpichnikov, who was running there, arrived with his comrades from St. Petersburg, he was met near the town itself by more than five hundred Cossacks." The hopes of the Cossacks for good news from the deputies were immediately destroyed. At that moment, officers of the government detachment arrived, declaring that the members of the delegation, by order of Traubenberg, should be isolated under the supervision of a doctor and guards, under the pretext of a medical examination and quarantine. The assembled Cossacks did not allow the deputies to be detained.
Two days on January 10 and 11 passed in absentia confrontation. Traubenberg sent messengers and foremen demanding Kirpichnikov to appear at the military office. Kirpichnikov, feeling the support of the overwhelming majority of the Cossacks behind him, defiantly refused. By order of the general, some of the “disobedient” Cossacks, from among those gathered around the house of the rebellious foreman, were arrested, but the Cossacks of the military side also beat several representatives of the military foreman, and two of them even “threw them to death with logs into a cold cellar.” Gradually, two irreconcilable centers of confrontation arose in the city. The Cossacks of the senior side made their way openly and secretly to the military office, around which 30 guns were placed, directed along the streets adjacent to it. The Cossacks of the military side gathered daily at the house of the retired Cossack Mikhail Tolkachev, who became their informal leader, putting forward more and more radical demands every hour. Speaking at this circle, Kirpichnikov stated that he allegedly brought from St. Petersburg the decree of the Empress, in which she granted the Cossacks the right to act at their own discretion in everything. According to Kirpichnikov, Ekaterina laid all the troubles of the Cossacks on Count Chernyshev, but after learning about his intrigues, "that the count is all philosophizing, he is very sorry." A simple lie, however, had an inspiring effect. Confident in their rightness, the Cossacks of the military side rejected all the exhortations and demands of Traubenberg.
On January 12, a military circle was convened at Tolkachev's house. Centuries Ivan Kirpichnikov and Afanasy Perfilyev suggested once again turning to General Traubenberg with a request to remove the foremen and the next morning go to Traubenberg in a peaceful procession, with priests, icons, and families, in order to convince the general that he had no desire to fight and ask him to believe the army. On the circle, opinions were divided, the majority decided to try to solve the case by handing Traubenberg a petition. But part of the Cossacks considered this idea senseless, demanding to solve the matter by force. Many after the circle did not go home, but spent the night right there by the fires. On the morning of January 13, almost all the Cossacks with their families gathered at Tolkachev's house, eyewitnesses called the number from 3 to 5 thousand people. From here they went to the Peter and Paul Church, where a prayer service was served. Then, with images and the singing of prayers, the procession slowly moved along the main street of the city to the south, towards the Michael the Archangel Cathedral and the Military Chancellery. Having passed part of the way, the demonstrators once again sent their representatives to Captain Durnovo - the Cossack Shigaev and the priest Vasiliev. They conveyed a request to Traubenberg - to leave the city with the soldiers in a peaceful way. In addition to Durnovo, the military ataman of the Tambovtsev and military foremen Borodin and Suetin also entered into negotiations. Captain Durnovo promised, gaining time, that the troops and Traubenberg would soon leave the city, but at the same time he refused to confirm this publicly to all the assembled Cossacks. Shigaev also urged the ataman and elders to obey the army, saying that otherwise “it will lead, God have mercy, to bloodshed; the army will not lag behind their enterprise now. Even the general will not allow Durnovo, maybe they will shoot from cannons at themselves, but the people will not tolerate then, so you yourself know that it will turn out to be a bad thing. But the ataman and foremen only repeated Traubenberg's demand that everyone go home.
According to later testimonies, during the negotiations, part of the Cossacks of the disobedient side, on foot and on horseback, by courtyards, back streets, hiding under the yar of Chagan, made their way close to the wax office. Durnovo testified that in the Military Chancellery they saw that about five hundred Cossacks were dispersed in the gardens around the main square. In the meantime, when the main procession with the singing of prayers, carrying in front a large and revered icon of the Mother of God, slowly moved forward again, Traubenberg ordered Durnovo to open fire on the crowd with grapeshot from cannons at close range. Then they fired a volley from the muskets of the dragoons. More than 100 people died immediately - men, women, children. There were significantly more wounded. Part of the procession began to scatter and hide in the houses on the sides of the street, others rushed to their homes for weapons, and still others, even unarmed, remained in place. A detachment of armed Cossacks appeared from a side street. He quickly scattered over the Cossack houses and returned fire from behind shelters and from roofs. Shooting was carried out at the gunners and soon most of them were either killed or dispersed. Then the Cossacks, both armed and unarmed, attacked the artillery position. At first they captured one cannon, and soon all the rest. The position was broken. The dragoons behind the cannons faltered and ran in panic. The Cossacks of the “senior party” also ran after them. Eyewitnesses said that the Cossacks deployed the captured cannons and fired several shots. At the same time, probably due to too large charges, two guns exploded. The unarmed Cossacks seized the guns thrown by the dragoons. General Traubenberg with officers and ataman Tambovtsev with his supporters tried to hide in the stone house of Tambovtsev, but the Cossacks and "several women and girls with dracoli" caught up with them. Traubenberg tried to hide under the porch, they got him, hacked to death with sabers and threw him on a garbage heap. Ataman Tambovtsev, foremen Mitryasov, Kolpakov, S. Tambovtsev, captain Dolgopolov, lieutenant Ashcheulov, 6 soldiers were killed. Captain Durnovo, lieutenant Skipin, foreman Suetin, 25 dragoons were wounded and captured. The rest of the dragoons were taken prisoner unharmed. Of the 200 "obedient" Cossacks, 40 people were killed, 20 were wounded. The losses of the "disobedient" Cossacks are unknown.
rebel army
All the surviving officers and soldiers were disarmed, many were beaten. The Cossacks of the obedient side were also beaten, many were dragged by the hair through the city to places of detention. The merchants who were in the city at that moment also got it, since, for the most part, they dealt with wealthy Cossacks of the foreman's side. On the evening of January 13, a circle was called by the alarm bell, on which a new leadership of the Yaik army was formed. It was decided not to choose a military ataman, instead a board of three military attorneys was elected: Vasily Trifonov, Terenty Sengilevtsev and Andrey Labzenev. By the time of the uprising, all three were imprisoned by order of Traubenberg. All foremen and centurions belonging to the foremen's side were removed. Many Cossacks were inspired: “No matter how many forces there are, no one can overcome us!” Despite the objections of the newly elected foremen, by a majority of votes in the circle, it was decided to execute the military clerk Suetin and the clerk Syugunov, who formalized many unfair decisions of the former atamans and foremen. In conversations, they referred to the legendary letters from the Moscow tsars, where the army was allegedly granted many freedoms and the right to live at their own discretion. However, there were many cautious and sober-minded Cossacks who did not share the optimism of their comrades and called for making all actions as legal as possible. Therefore, when the captive elders were brought to the circle, after many disputes it was decided not to execute them, but to keep them under arrest. Within two days, petitions were written to Catherine II, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, Governor-General Reinsdorp of Orenburg, Archbishop Veniamin of Kazan, in which they tried to explain the speech by significant abuses of the senior side and the injustice of the commission of inquiry. In the messages, the Cossacks asked to return the election of chieftains and foremen, in order to be able to remove objectionable and stealing from their posts, to issue delayed salaries, to transfer troops from the subordination of the Military Collegium to the authority of individual royal confidants (for example, the Orlovs). Four delegates were chosen for the trip to St. Petersburg, including Maxim Shigaev.
The wounded captain Durnovo was transferred from under arrest to the care of military doctors. After the health of the wounded soldiers and officers improved, all members of the government detachment were released to Orenburg. With them, a significant supply of fish and caviar was sent to the Orenburg governor, counting on reconciliation. In the meantime, military attorneys, with the participation of other Cossacks, drew up the text of a new oath, to which on January 15 all Cossack troops were brought, including the supporters of the senior party who were imprisoned. After the ceremony of taking the oath, all the Cossacks were forced to ask each other for forgiveness, in order to restore peace and unity in the army. The oath was sealed with signatures.
On February 11, in St. Petersburg, the State Council heard a report from the Orenburg Governor-General Reinsdorp about the events in the Yaitsky town. Reinsdorp proposed not to take immediate action, but after waiting for the spring and the moment when most of the Cossacks leave the city for the spring flood - catching stellate sturgeons, take the city with regular troops, bringing the Cossacks "into obedience" and changing command of the army. On February 16, a delegation of Cossacks arrived in St. Petersburg, headed by Pugachev's future associate Maxim Shigaev. Immediately upon arrival, the entire delegation was arrested and placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress. On the same day, the State Council decided to send a punitive expedition to the Yaitsky town under the command of Major General F. Yu. Freiman. On March 26, a rescript was issued by Empress Catherine II to the Orenburg governor Reinsdorp in connection with the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks. In the meantime, in the Yaik town, they decided to send another group of deputies to St. Petersburg from an army of nine people, led by the stanitsa ataman Morkovtsev.
The government and Empress Catherine had another reason to hasten with the liquidation of the rebellion in the Yaik army, since it received wide publicity. In the spring of 1772, an attempt to recruit Cossacks from the Volga army took an unexpected turn. During the unrest and expression of dissatisfaction, the Cossacks unexpectedly announced that “Emperor Peter III” appeared in the villages on the Volga, who managed to escape after the coup in favor of his wife. The fugitive serf Fedot Bogomolov was given for the emperor. The rebellious Volga Cossacks arrested the officers who arrived for replenishment in the legion, they tried to capture the capital of the Volga army Dubovka, but were defeated. Bogomolov was arrested, but soon an attempt was made to release him from prison in Tsaritsyn and transport him to the Don. The preparation did not go unnoticed, during the clashes in Tsaritsyn, the commandant of the city, Colonel Tsypletev, was seriously wounded, but the rebellion attempt was suppressed.
At this time, in the Yaik town, attempts were made to hastily strengthen the army militarily. By the beginning of the uprising, all the artillery of the Yaik Cossacks was dispersed among the fortresses and outposts of the border line along the Yaik River; The military office issued an order to send half of the entire composition of the Cossack garrisons, as well as all the guns, to Yaitsky town. In addition, most of the serfs who were in the Army and resettled were recorded in the Cossacks. Along the entire border line, the former atamans of the fortresses were removed from their posts, and new ones from among the rebels were appointed. For military needs, the money of the arrested representatives of the foremen's side was confiscated, and fines were imposed on those who remained at large. Horses were also confiscated. Nevertheless, there were not enough weapons, many Cossacks carried only pikes, bows and edged weapons. Expecting an imminent clash with the government, the Cossacks hurried to take steps to reconcile with their closest neighbors. All the held hostages - “amanats”, cattle recaptured in raids, were released into the Kazakh steppes, on March 24, 200 horses were returned to Sultan Aichuvak.
At the same time, most of the preparations took place randomly and inconsistently, part of the Cossacks advocated the need to continue attempts to negotiate with the authorities, part - for more decisive action, the execution of the arrested foremen. The composition of the Military Chancellery was constantly changing, as a result of which some of the orders were canceled, and then issued again. When one of the three military attorneys Sengilevtsev left the army to accompany the wounded captain of the guard Durnovo, the radical Cossacks insisted on electing the 70-year-old Cossack Neulybin to his place. Known for his obstinacy, Neulybin in previous years was arrested many times, was sent into exile. With his arrival in the leadership of the rebel army there was a complete discord. Trying to find a peaceful way out after the incident in January Trifonov, Kirpichnikov tried to call on the Cossacks to moderation in their demands on the government. But the radical part of the army, together with the newly elected attorney Neulybin, insisted on more drastic measures. In March, two of the attorneys found a reason to remove Neulybin, instead of him Nikita Kargin was chosen for this post. In April, Governor Reinsdorp sent his representative, the Orenburg Cossack, Colonel Ugletsky, to the Yaitsky town, who, several years before the events described, acted as the chief ataman of the Yaitsky army. For two days, on April 28 and 29, at the convened military circle with the participation of Ugletsky, the Cossacks tried to find a way to reconcile with the government while maintaining the foundations of the independence of the Yaitsky army. Moderate Cossacks offered to release all the arrested foremen to Orenburg, convincing them to plead for their fellow countrymen. The radical ones offered to rely only on the decision of the empress and not listen to anyone else. Without coming to any decision, the Cossacks released Ugletsky, who reported in Orenburg that his mission had been unsuccessful. But at the same time, Ugletsky noted that due to disputes and the inability of the Cossacks to agree among themselves, “he did not see any of them, Yaitsky’s troops, for resistance preparations.”
Battle near Embulatovka
On May 15, 1772, the Orenburg Corps, under the command of Major General Freiman, advanced to the Yaitsky town, it included 2519 dragoons and rangers, 1112 mounted Orenburg Cossacks and Stavropol Kalmyks, about 20 guns. On May 16, the Cossacks of the Genvartsev outpost informed the attorneys in the Yaitsky town that Freiman's corps was seen on the way to the Iletsk town. The Iletsk Cossacks, in turn, reported that Freiman had asked them to prepare 275 horses and carts for his approach, and the local archpriest was threatening the Yaik troublemakers with reprisals. Soon this information was confirmed by another Cossack of the Iletsk town, he also said that a chase was equipped for him, "so that he would not give news to the Yaik army." The previously announced collection of weapons, gunpowder and ammunition was extremely slow, which was explained by the inconsistency of the orders of the military office, the lack of control over the progress of the orders issued.
Hope for help from the Kazakhs was destroyed by active diplomatic and military measures on the part of the governor of Reinsdorp. On the eve of the departure of Freiman’s corps, the governor, in a message to Nurali Khan, invited him to join the campaign of government troops, at the same time informing that a “special corps” was following the left (“Bukhara”) bank of the Yaik. His task is to assist Freiman, but Nurali Khan read this veiled threat and preferred to withdraw from participation in the events. On May 27, Freiman's corps crossed the Irtek River in the immediate vicinity of the lands of the rebel troops. The Yaitsky Cossacks, who mostly went to the spring flood - catching stellate sturgeon, were urgently recalled to the Yaitsky town. A military circle was convened, at which the Cossacks could not come to a consensus for several days - whether to meet Freiman respectfully or to meet them in repulse. The most radical speakers proposed to accept the battle, and after defeating Freiman, go to Orenburg, "on the way to disturb the landowners to escape and take them into their army." Later, Freiman wrote to Catherine II: “These Yaik Cossacks are stubborn, proud, brutally vicious in their morals, as this intention proves that after defeating me they wanted to go through the Volga to Russia.” But on the second day of the circle, more moderate moods took over. It was decided to meet Freiman at the Genvartsev outpost on the border of the army and convince him not to advance further. First, an advance detachment of 400 Cossacks under the command of marching atamans I. Ponomarev and I. Ulyanov, and two days later the main detachment of 2000 Cossacks under the command of V. Trifonov advanced up the Yaik.
The Cossacks of the senior side were also forcibly enrolled in the main detachment of Trifonov, which had a negative impact on his combat cohesion. Only 200 people were left in the Yaitsky town by lot. Of all the guns brought in, only 12 suitable ones were able to be selected, while there was only about 15 pounds of gunpowder, which was clearly not enough to fight with regular troops. The call of the Cossacks of the senior side immediately made itself felt. While the Cossacks were preparing a raid with the aim of attacking Freiman's household convoy near the Irtets Rossosh, several "obedient" Cossacks fled and warned the government detachment. Freiman ordered the advanced columns to stop moving so that the units stretched along the road gathered more densely. Convinced that the ambush had lost its meaning, Ponomarev and Ulyanov ordered the Cossacks to take a position on the banks of the Embulatovka River (not far from the current village of Rubezhinsky).
On June 1, the Yaik Cossacks sent centurion A. Perfiliev, another of Pugachev's future closest associates, to Freiman for negotiations, accompanied by two more Cossacks. Perfilyev, at a meeting with Freiman, stated that the Cossacks of the Yaitsky army "are in great doubt about the teams and artillery marching with the major general," asking "why and by what decree are they going to the Yaitsky town?" At the same time, Perfilyev tried to exaggerate the number of Cossacks, saying that on Embulatovka "up to about three thousand people who carry guns, spears, arrows and sabers", and in the Yaitsky town "there are enough Cossacks left to protect it." In addition, Perfilyev demanded the extradition of all defectors - the Cossacks of the senior side. Freiman did not succumb to simple tricks, demanding in turn to hand over all the instigators of the rebellion immediately, and then go to the Yaitsky town and wait for the arrival of his team there. Perfilyev had no choice but to complete the negotiations with a proud statement: “We will all die on the Embulatovka River, but we won’t let us into the town!”
Freiman attacked the Cossacks at dawn on June 3 and managed to take them by surprise, according to the testimony of the Cossacks - “at dawn he approached them with a team and attacked them at such a time that they were not yet prepared to fight back.” The Cossacks missed the moment when the government detachment advanced along the narrow passage between the hills. Freiman soon reached an open area of the steppe, where he was able to reorganize his forces into regular columns. The Cossacks, who came to their senses, attacked his left flank, at the same time setting fire to dry grass in order to hide their movements under cover of smoke. However, the smoke intervened in their actions, as Freiman wrote in the report, the Cossacks "having brought the cannons to the hollow, fired very hastily, but as the smoke prevented them from directing, their cores all flew through." Freiman's corps returned fire with cannons, while the soldiers hurried to mow the grass with shovels to stop the spread of fire. The Cossacks regrouped and again attacked the government detachment, this time from the right flank, trying to push the soldiers back to the river bank. Freiman threw cavalry detachments of the Orenburg Cossacks and Kalmyks into a counter attack, forcing the Yaik Cossacks to retreat again and take up positions on the hills on both sides of the road along which the government corps was to advance. The first day of the battle did not bring obvious results to either side, but it was noticeable that the government artillery fired much more effectively than the rebel cannons.
Despite this, the Yaik chieftains sent messengers to the city with the news that Freiman's corps was "not allowed" into the lands of the troops and 8 prisoners were captured by the Cossacks. A thanksgiving prayer service was served in Yaitsky town, after which it was decided to send congratulations and an order to “kill everyone, and bring the general to the city” to Embulatovka. Women with images went through the procession through all the churches and chapels, after which they "searched for the obedient side of the men in the houses and beat them."
In the meantime, at dawn on June 4, Freiman falsely demonstrated that he was going to send his detachment to the crossing through the Embulatovka, while ordering to secretly place 4 cannons on a hill near the crossing under the cover of 400 grenadiers, enclosing positions with slingshots. The locations of the remaining units were also fenced off with slingshots, so that the attacks of the insurgent cavalry would be difficult. The Cossacks attacked the government corps, but to no avail, after which they were forced to begin a retreat to the river, falling under fire from an ambush battery. Meanwhile, Freiman's entire corps went on the attack, with the soldiers carrying slingshots in front of the front. The Cossacks hastened to transport their cannons to the right bank of the Embulatovka, and then crossed themselves, leaving only a small barrier on the left bank. Freiman occupied all the dominant heights near the crossing under the positions of his batteries. Regrouping, the cavalry Yaik Cossacks returned to the left bank again, while the cannons and infantry tried to support them with fire from the right bank. But their positions were in the lowland and the Cossacks could not organize aimed mounted shooting. The attackers of Freiman had to return, after which the Cossacks decided to retreat to the Yaik town. Freiman was not able to pursue them immediately, continuing to move towards the town only the next day, June 5, after repairing bridges, wagons, carts and cannon carriages.
Defeat of the uprising. Investigation and punishment
Defeated, the returning Cossacks urged all residents to leave the Yaitsky town and move south towards the Persian border. Soon about 30 thousand people, at least 10 thousand wagons, cattle and horses accumulated at the crossings. Convoys with most of the population crossed the Chagan. In this turmoil, the relatives managed to free the imprisoned Cossacks of the senior side, running with them towards Freiman. On the night of June 6, the tsarist troops entered the Yaitsky town and by decisive actions prevented the destruction of the crossing. Centuries Vitoshnov and Zhuravlev were sent to negotiate with the crossing Cossacks, who were instructed to announce that all those who did not return to the city would be pursued and executed by government troops. After negotiations and calls to return without fear, gradually most of the inhabitants of the Yaitsky town returned to their homes.
The losses of the Cossacks turned out to be significant, Freiman's calculation showed that in the city "128 courtyards were left empty after those killed and those who did not appear." Freiman declared the city under a state of siege. The troops were withdrawn from the city and camped nearby. A permanent guard and an artillery battery were placed at the military office. Other batteries were located on the city rampart, with the task of opening fire on the city if necessary. The streets of the city were patrolled by horse patrols of dragoons. As a result of the defeat of the uprising, gatherings of military circles were prohibited, power in the army from now on passed to the commandant's office, headed by the commandant lieutenant colonel I. D. Simonov. The previously unheard-of post of police chief was introduced in the army, who was declared foreman I. Tambovtsev, brother of the military ataman killed at the beginning of the uprising, later foreman M. Borodin. The fugitive foremen and members of their families who returned to the town took revenge on their offenders, robbed the houses of the Cossacks under the pretext of returning their property, and also helped in the search for the fled active participants in the uprising, indicating the places of their possible shelter. For the capture of the rebels, the Cossacks of the senior side were paid cash rewards. The most severe punishment was the inadmissibility of the participants in the uprising to fishing, which put most of the Yaik Cossacks on the brink of ruin.
In the meantime, about 300-400 Cossacks, rightly believing that returning to the Yaitsky town could result in execution for them, decided to leave the lands of the army and head to the Volga and, possibly, further to the Kuban. A detachment of 900 soldiers, accompanied by some foremen, was sent to search for them. Freiman also notified the Astrakhan governor Beketov about the fugitives. As a result of joint actions, many of the instigators of the uprising, including Trifonov, Kirpichnikov, were captured and taken to the Yaitsky town. But at least half managed to escape from persecution in the steppe between Yaik and the Volga. In the meantime, thousands of Kazakh troops unexpectedly approached the Yaik town, causing panic among the inhabitants of the city. Freiman ordered the Kazakh foremen to immediately leave the lands of the Yaitsky army, and although in response to his threats the Kazakhs replied that they also “have guns, arrows and copies,” a clash was avoided. Whether this was a belated response to the rebels' call for help, or whether the Kazakhs wanted to take advantage of the moment of unrest with their neighbors for the purpose of robbery, remained unknown.
One of the priority measures taken by Freiman in the Yaitsky town was an attempt to conduct a census of the Cossacks in order to identify persons who did not have the right to be considered Cossacks and who were illegally on Yaik. By July 1, the results of the census were ready, but they did not suit the general, even the foremen loyal to the authorities made attempts to hide the rather large non-Cossack population. Attempts to persuade Freiman to be satisfied with these results did not lead to anything, and the census was announced again. This time it was ordered to rewrite everyone, starting from the age of 10. Following Freiman announced the upcoming restructuring of the troops and the introduction of new ranks that were previously absent in the Yaik army. Freiman did not have time to complete what he had planned personally, on August 2 he received an order from the governor of Reinsdorp to return to Orenburg. Two light field teams remained in the Yaitsky town under the general command of the commandant Lieutenant Colonel Simonov, to whom Colonel Baron von Bilov was seconded. Simonov was left with detailed instructions on organizing undercover work with informants within the army, maintaining the strictest ban on any gathering of Cossacks, arresting at the slightest suspicion of disobedience, and searching for those who were still hiding after the defeat of the uprising.
Simonov continued the reorganization of the Yaik army. From now on, it was divided into 10 regiments of 533 Cossacks each, the new staff established the ranks of colonels, captains, centurions, cornets and constables. The government garrison, which had remained behind the city walls during the summer, was decided to be transferred to city apartments by autumn. Simonov and Bilov made sure that at least two soldiers were settled in the houses of the participants in the uprising, representatives of the foremen's camp were spared from waiting. The rebellious mood among the Cossacks subsided for a while, because, having lost their participation in the spring and autumn fishing, the Cossacks of the military side were looking forward to the winter crimson, which was supposed to provide impoverished families with a living. But Simonov was haunted by the rumors about Tsaritsyn's "Peter III", and in November a rumor spread through the army that the "tsar" had visited the Yaitsky town and personally spoke with the Cossack Denis Pyanov. The fugitive Don Cossack Pugachev, who came to the town for fish and was arrested after returning from a November trip to Yaik, called himself Tsar Peter. Rumors about his visit stirred up the army, which had been quiet, some did not want to believe in the "hiding sovereign", urging them not to violate the barely established peace with the government. But many of the Cossacks, who did not want to admit defeat, seized on this news as a new hope, especially those who were in hiding and could not return to their homes. As Ivan Zarubin (Chika) later showed during interrogations, who during the described period was hiding among others on Uzeni: “We, the Cossacks of the military side, were already thinking about this and were waiting for spring; wherever we meet, the military all said: “Here will be the sovereign!” And as soon as he comes, they were preparing to receive him.
Hopes that the government would “have mercy and forgive” the Cossacks for the uprising of 72 years were destroyed in the spring of the following 1773. The government commission in Orenburg completed the investigation into the rebellion and presented a draft verdict that horrified the Cossacks on Yaik. All the Cossacks elected during the uprising as attorneys and atamans, there were 11 of them, were sentenced to be quartered. Another 40 people, mostly from among those chosen as centurions - to be hanged, and three - to beheaded. Another 13 Cossacks, after being punished with whips, were to be sent as soldiers to the regiments of the Second Army. But the commission did not stop there, all the children sentenced from 15 years and older, who counted 316 people, were ordered to be enlisted as soldiers, and those who were not fit for health service were punished with whips. However, the verdict did not suit the governor of Reinsdorp, who demanded to change it in order to achieve "on the one hand - severity, on the other - the highest mercy." As a result of his editing, 26 Cossacks were to be quartered, and from among the rest sentenced to death, 15 people were chosen by lot and hanged, the rest were beaten with a whip and sent into exile in Siberia. The same punishment awaited all the participants in the uprising who were still in hiding. All other representatives of the military side were to be imposed large monetary fines. At their own expense, a monument was to be built at the site of the death of General Traubenberg.
The drafts of the verdict, from the commission of inquiry and with Reinsdorp's corrections, were sent to St. Petersburg for confirmation. After considering the submitted draft sentences, Catherine II ordered the Military Collegium to significantly soften their provisions. According to the final verdict, approved by the empress, 16 Cossacks, from among those named those sentenced to death, were supposed to "punish with a whip, pull out their nostrils and put signs, exile them to Siberia to the Nerchinsk factories forever." Another group of 38 Cossacks - after being beaten with a whip, but without branding or tearing out their nostrils, was also exiled to Siberia for a settlement along with their families. 31 people were to be sent to the army regiments participating in the war with the Turks, and those who were not capable of service - to the Siberian garrison battalions. This, significantly mitigated, sentence was carried out on July 10, 1773 in the Yaitsky town, where all the instigators of the uprising who were imprisoned in the Orenburg jail were taken. At the same time, of those sentenced to death, those who persuaded the Cossacks not to execute the captured officers and foremen, only 6 people, were completely forgiven. Among them was, in particular, Maxim Shigaev, who persuaded not to kill the wounded Captain Durnovo. All other Cossacks of the military side were also forgiven on behalf of the Empress, which did not cancel the requirements for payment of the imposed fine - more than 35 thousand rubles in total. The verdict, with its terrible mass punishment in terms of cruelty, made a heavy depressing impression on the Cossacks.
The results of the uprising
The public execution of the sentence to the participants in the uprising in the Yaik town, as well as the significant fines imposed on the rest of the Cossacks who were not among those sentenced to exile, were supposed to break the rebellious moods of the Cossacks of the military side. In fact, this goal was not only not achieved by the government, but, moreover, it only further embittered the defeated Cossacks and strengthened the protest moods that had subsided. A. S. Pushkin, who spoke with the participants in the events sixty years later, reflected these sentiments on the pages of The History of Pugachev, writing that when the Cossacks sentenced to exile were lined up for transportation, sympathetic exclamations were heard in the crowd of their comrades: “Will there be more! Is this how we shake Moscow!” The large fines imposed on the Cossacks of the military side were unbearable in size and insulting and unacceptable in nature. According to the Orenburg official and historian academician Rychkov, out of the total amount of the fine, the authorities managed to collect only 12 thousand rubles, “and there was no one to take the rest, because a considerable number of Cossacks fled from the strict penalty.” The flight of the Cossacks from among the disobedient from the town intensified with the announcement of the verdict, they joined their comrades who had been hiding in Uzen since the military defeat of the uprising. A ready-made and cohesive core of the future performance was formed there, for which only a pretext was needed. Realizing that a large number of the Cossacks of the military side were in a desperate mood and were ready for a new performance at the first suitable pretext, the moderate elite of the army tried to achieve a mitigation of the fate of those sentenced and a reduction in the amount of fines imposed. A. Perfiliev and I. Gerasimov were sent to St. Petersburg, secretly from the commandant Simonov, who presented a petition from the army to Count Alexei Orlov. But its consideration was delayed.
