Peasant unrest began to grow. granted liberties to the nobility, because of this, rumors about "peasant will" spread throughout the country. In 1759, in Karelia and in the Urals, peasant uprisings were noted, which continued until 1764.
During the plague epidemic in 1771, a peasant uprising broke out in Moscow. In the same year, the Yaik Cossacks revolted. This was a kind of prelude to the start of the large-scale Peasant War led by Yemelyan Pugachev. In 1773, a man appeared in the Ural Cossack army, posing as Peter III.
The impostor was Emelyan Pugachev, a Don Cossack. He was an outstanding person and, thanks to his leadership skills, quickly gained popularity among the Cossack environment. After the Tsar's manifesto of September 17, 1773, Emelyan Pugachev's detachment moved to Yaitsk.
Realizing that it would not be possible to take the city, he moved higher along the river, and as he moved, his detachment grew. Soon the number of the insurgent troops amounted to two and a half thousand people. Pugachev returns to Yaitsk and besieges the city.
Begins to actively engage in propaganda activities, the number of his squad continues to grow. The tsar's troops, sent to help Yaitsk, were defeated on the outskirts of the city. The uprising grew into a real peasant war.
Yemelyan's troops grew exponentially, working people from all over the Urals flocked to his beginning. By February, had gone over to the side of the rebel great amount serfs. In 1774, Pugachev's associates captured Ufa. In the Volga region, as well as in the Urals, it was not calm. The peasant war covered vast territories.
During peasant war Russia was fighting against Turkey. This state of affairs greatly complicated the situation within the country. The state was sorely lacking in strength. Large armies were sent to Yaitsk and Ufa, under the command of Bibikov. He managed to inflict great damage on the rebels. The rebels retreated to the Urals, and later the main battles took place in the Volga region. In July 1774, a major battle took place for Kazan. Pugachev managed to take the city, but because of the onslaught regular army, he had to be left.
He moved along the right bank of the Volga to the West from the city, in a hurry to the Don. On the way, Emelyan almost did not meet any resistance, occupying the Volga cities one after another. In August, not far from the town of Tsaritsyn, the troops overtook the rebels and defeated them. After that, a conspiracy matured among the Cossacks, and they turned over Pugachev to the authorities. Two months later, after interrogation, Emelyan was executed. It is worth noting that he played a big role in the defeat of Pugachev.
In September 1773, on the far southeastern outskirts of Russia, on the banks of the river. Yaik, an uprising broke out among the Yaik Cossacks under the leadership of E. Pugachev. In the course of its development, it acquired the character of a genuine peasant war against the feudal-serf system of Russia in the 18th century. Therefore, in the history of our homeland, this spontaneous uprising of the peasantry is called the peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev.
The peasant war of 1773-1775 was a natural consequence of the socio-economic conditions of feudal-feudal Russia in the 18th century, an expression of the acute class struggle of the multinational peasantry of Russia against their oppressors and exploiters - the nobles and landowners, against the noble-landlord state.
The uprising of the peasantry was spontaneous and disorganized. The downtrodden, obscure, completely illiterate peasantry could not create its own organization and work out its own program. The demands of the insurgent peasants and all the exploited people did not go further than the desire to have a "good tsar" who would free the peasantry from the oppression of the noble landowners, who would grant land and freedom. In the eyes of the rebellious peasants, such a king was the leader of the uprising, the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, who took on the name of Emperor Peter III.
As the leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev did not, however, have a clear program of action. His aspirations were also associated only with the accession to the Russian throne of the "good tsar".
The spark of the uprising that broke out in September 1773 on the banks of the Yaik, a month later blazed with a bright flame and covered a huge region within a year: from the Caspian in the south to the modern cities of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kungur, Molotov in the north, from the rivers Tobol, Ural and Kazakh steppes in the east to the right bank of the Volga in the west.
The uprising lasted more than a year - from September 1773 to early 1775. The tsarist government, headed by Catherine II, mobilized large military forces to suppress the uprising. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev, betrayed in September 1774 by traitors to the tsarist authorities, was executed in Moscow on January 10, 1775.
Prerequisites for the uprising
Despite the struggle that the Bashkirs waged for decades, resettlement to Bashkiria continued to increase, the seizure of land continued, the number of estates belonging to landowners grew; at the same time, the area of land that remained in the use of the Bashkirs decreased.
The wealth of the Urals attracted new entrepreneurs who seized vast tracts of land and built factories on them. Almost all major dignitaries, ministers, senators with their capital participated in the construction of metallurgical plants in the Urals, and hence the government's attitude to the complaints and protests of the Bashkirs.
The Bashkirs unite in groups of several people, attack newly built factories and landlord estates, trying to take revenge on their oppressors. More and more, a situation was created in which the various peoples inhabiting the region had to protest against colonization, reaching the point of open struggle.
The uprisings of the Bashkirs, the departure of the Kalmyks from the borders of Russia to China, the alertness, the hostile attitude of the Kazakh people towards Russia - all this speaks for the fact that the tsarist policy to these peoples was understandable, that it was hostile to them.
Due to the fact that the population was still sparse, the demand for labor is increasing. The breeders seek in 1784 a government instruction, according to which the owners of the factories are given the right to attach and use in the factories from 100 to 150 households of state peasants. Peasants attached to factories were not paid for work at the factories. Since the population of the region was very rare, peasants from villages located at a great distance were attached to the plant. This type of corvee became even more difficult, since the peasants were cut off from the villages for almost a year and did not have the opportunity to work on their farm.
The breeders with all their strength and means sought to completely liquidate the peasant economy, tear them off the land and completely take them into their own hands.
There is no way to convey all the techniques and methods used by the breeders in their desire to ruin the peasants, to deprive them of their economic base. They sent special detachments that burst into villages in the midst of field work, during spring sowing, harvesting, etc., grabbed the peasants, flogged them, torn them off from work and escorted them to the plant. The strips remained unplowed, the harvest unharvested. The peasants complained to the local authorities, reached the capital itself, but at best they were not accepted, and sometimes even, without examining the case, they were called rioters and imprisoned.
The clerks at the factories strenuously observed that there were no "parasites", i.e. so that not only men but also women and children work. As a result of this exploitation, overcrowding, poor nutrition and exhaustion of strength, infectious diseases developed, and mortality increased.
The peasants repeatedly rebelled against registration in factories, but these uprisings were of a purely local nature, arose spontaneously and were brutally suppressed by military detachments.
Not only peasants worked in the factories, most of the fugitive people concentrated here. Among them were serfs, various criminals, Old Believers, etc. Until there was a decree on the fight against the fugitives and their return to their place of residence, they lived relatively freely, but after the decree, detachments of soldiers began to pursue them. Wherever the fugitive appeared, everywhere they asked him "kind", and since there was no "kind", the fugitive was immediately taken away and sent home to carry out reprisals there.
Knowing that the fugitives were deprived of rights, the breeders freely hired them, and soon the factories turned into a place of concentration of the fugitives. The Berg Collegium, which was in charge of the factories, tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and expulsion of all fugitives, and the troops of the Orenburg governor had no right to raid the factories.
Taking advantage of the powerlessness and hopelessness of the fugitives, the breeders put them in the position of slaves, and the slightest discontent, protest of the fugitives caused repression: the fugitives were immediately seized, handed over to the soldiers, mercilessly flogged and then sent to hard labor.
Working conditions in the mining factories were dreadful: the mines lacked ventilation and the workers were suffocating from the heat and lack of air; the pumps were poorly adjusted, and people worked for hours standing waist-deep in water. Although the breeders were given some instructions to improve working conditions, no one followed them, since officials were accustomed to bribes, and it was more profitable for the breeder to give a bribe than to spend money on technical innovations.
The position of the serfs was no better. In 1762, Catherine II, the wife of Peter III, who assisted in the murder of her husband, ascended the throne. As a henchman of the nobles, Catherine II marked her reign with the final enslavement of the peasants, giving the nobles the right to dispose of the peasants at their discretion. In 1767, she issued a decree forbidding peasants from complaining about their landlords; those guilty of violating this decree were subjected to reference to hard labor.
With the growth of foreign trade, imported goods appear on the markets: beautiful fine fabrics, high-grade wines, jewelry, various luxury items and trinkets; they could only be purchased for money. But in order to have money, the landlords had to sell something. They could only throw agricultural products onto the market, so the landlords increase the area under crops, which is a new burden on the peasants. Under Catherine the corvee increased up to 4 days, and in some localities, in particular in the Orenburg region, it reached 6 days a week. The peasants had only nights and Sundays and other holidays to work on their farm. One of the types of landlord management was plantation farming, when serfs worked all the time for the master and received bread for this to feed. The peasants were in the position of slaves, they were the property of their masters and were dependent on them.
The decree of Catherine II banning the peasants from complaining about the landowners gave impetus to the unbridled Russian master's passions. If Saltychikha, who lived in the center of Russia, tortured up to a hundred people with her own hands, then what did the landowners who lived in the outskirts do? Peasants were sold wholesale and retail, landlords dishonored girls, women, raped minors, mocked pregnant women. On the day of the wedding, they abducted the brides and, disgracing them, returned them to the grooms. The peasants were losing at cards, exchanged for dogs, for the slightest offense they were brutally beaten with whips, whips, rods.
The peasants, despite the decree, tried to complain to the Orenburg governors. In the Orenburg regional archive, several dozen "cases" have been preserved about the rape of minors, about the abuse of pregnant women, about peasants who had been whipped with rods, etc., but most of them were left without consequences.
The existing state of affairs was not only dissatisfied with the various peoples inhabiting the region, the mining workers and peasants, but also among the Cossacks a dull discontent was ripening, since their previous privileges and benefits were gradually canceled.
Fishing was one of the main sources of income for the Cossacks. The Cossacks used fish not only for their own food, but also exported it to the market. In fisheries, salt was of great importance, and the decree of 1754 on the salt monopoly dealt a huge blow to the economy of the Cossacks. Before the decree, the Cossacks used salt free of charge, extracting it in unlimited quantities from salt lakes. The Cossacks were dissatisfied with the monopoly and considered the collection of money for salt a direct encroachment on their rights and property. Class stratification grew in the Cossack environment. The elders' elite, led by atamans, take power into their own hands and use their position for personal enrichment. Atamans take over the salt mines and make all the Cossacks dependent. For salt, in addition to monetary payment, the chieftains collect in their favor the tenth fish from each catch. But this is not enough. The Yaik Cossacks received a small salary from the treasury for their service, the chieftains began to keep it, ostensibly as payment for the right to fish on Yaik. Subsequently, this salary was not enough, and the chieftains introduced an additional tax. All this caused discontent, which in 1763 resulted in an uprising of rank-and-file Cossacks against the elders' elite.
The commissions of inquiry sent to the Yaitsky town, although they removed the atamans,, being supporters of the kulak ruling part, nominated new atamans from its midst, so the situation did not improve.
But in 1766 a decree was issued, which caused discontent on the part of the rich. Prior to the decree, the Yaik Cossacks had the right to hire others in their place for military service. The rich had the means to hire them for the service, and this decree forbidding hiring was a hostile meeting for them, since they again had to serve in the army. The decree was also dissatisfied with a part of the Cossack dullness, which, due to its financial insecurity, was forced to replace the sons of wealthy Cossacks in military service for money.
At the same time, service orders were growing, Cossacks were taken away from their homes by hundreds and sent to various places. With the separation of men from home, households begin to wither and decline. Resenting all the growing hardships, the Yaik Cossacks, secretly from their superiors, sent their walkers to the queen with a petition, but the walkers were accepted as rebels and were subjected to corporal punishment with whips. This incident made it clear to the Cossacks that there was nothing to hope for help from above, but that they had to look for the truth ourselves.
In 1771, among Yaik Cossacks a new uprising broke out, troops were sent to suppress it. The immediate causes of the uprising were the following events. In 1771, the Kalmyks left the Volga region to the borders of China. Wanting to detain them, the Orenburg governor demanded that the Yaik Cossacks set out in pursuit. In response, the Cossacks said that until then they would not fulfill the requirements of the governor, until the seized privileges and liberties were restored. The Cossacks demanded the return of the right to elect chieftains and other military commanders, demanded payment of the delayed salary, etc. A detachment of soldiers led by Traunbenberg was sent to Yaitsky town from Orenburg to clarify the situation.
Being a power-hungry man, Traunbenberg, without delving into the essence of the matter, decided to act with weapons. Batteries burst on Yaitsky town. In response, the Cossacks rushed to arms, attacked the sent detachment, defeated it, chopping General Traunbenberg into pieces. Ataman Tambovtsev, who tried to prevent the uprising, was hanged.
The defeat of Traunbenberg's detachment caused alarm among the provincial authorities, and they did not hesitate to send fresh military units under the command of General Freiman to the Yaitsky town to suppress the "rebellion". In a battle with superior enemy forces, the Cossacks were defeated. The government decided to deal with the Cossacks so that the Cossacks would remember for a long time. For the reprisal of the rebels, specialist executioners were called from different cities, who carried out torture and executions. In its cruelty, this reprisal resembles the execution of Urusov. They hanged the Cossacks, put them on stakes, burned a stamp on their bodies; many were exiled to eternal hard labor. However, these executions aroused the Cossacks even more, and they were ready to ignite the fire of a new struggle.
The position of the Orenburg Cossacks was no better. They never had the liberties and privileges for which the Yaik Cossacks fought. Organized by virtue of the decree, the Orenburg Cossack army was in a much worse position than the Yaitsk one. Orenburg Cossacks lived in stanitsas scattered across the territory of the region; as a rule, the villages were built up near the fortresses, in which the Cossacks were in military service. In form, they had an elective stanitsa leadership, but in essence they were subordinate to the commandants of the fortresses. Commandants at first extend their power only to men, forcing them to perform work in their personal household, but over time it seems to them that this is not enough, they begin to exploit the entire population of the villages. The position of the Orenburg Cossacks was in many respects similar to that of the serfs. Being sovereign and almost uncontrollable, the commandants established a difficult regime in the villages, invaded the family and everyday affairs of the Cossacks. Moreover, most of the Orenburg Cossacks did not receive any salary. They were also dissatisfied with their position, but, being scattered all over the region, they silently endured all the oppression, waiting for an opportunity to deal with their offenders.
From all this it is clear that the entire population of the region, with the exception of tsarist officials, landowners, breeders and kulaks, was dissatisfied with the existing order and was ready to take revenge on the oppressors. Rumors began to appear among the people that the local authorities were to blame for the hard life, that they were doing their own will without the knowledge of the queen; rumors are spreading that the tsarina is also to blame, who does everything according to the will of the nobles, that if Tsar Peter Fedorovich were alive, then life would be easier. Behind these rumors, new ones were not slow to appear, that Peter Fedorovich with the help of guards escaped death, that he was alive and would soon call a cry to fight against officials and nobles.
The Orenburg province was as if on a powder keg, and it was enough for a brave man to find himself, throw a call, as thousands of people would rise to him from all sides. And such a brave man was found in the person of the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev. He was a brave, strong, brave man, had a clear, inquiring mind and observation.
Pugachev's personality
E. I. Pugachev |
Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev - Don Cossack by origin, a native of the Zimoveiskaya village, a participant in the Seven Years War with Prussia and the first war with Turkey (1768-1774). He first came to the Trans-Volga steppes in November 1772, after several years of wandering in search of a better life. Having received a passport for a settlement on the Irgiz River, E. Pugachev in November 1772 arrives in Mechetnaya Sloboda (now the city of Pugachev, Saratov Region) and stops at the abbot of the Old Believer Skete Filaret. From him, Pugachev learns about the unrest among the Yaik Cossacks and their intention to leave for new places.
Pugachev has a plan - to take the Cossacks to the Kuban River. To find out the intention of the Cossacks, on November 22, 1772, he comes under the guise of a merchant to Yaitsky town, devotes several people to his plans and for the first time calls himself Emperor Peter III. Upon his return to Irgiz, Pugachev was arrested on a denunciation and on December 19, chained in chains, sent to Simbirsk, and from there to Kazan, where he was imprisoned.
Thanks to his exceptional resourcefulness and courage, Pugachev escaped from the Kazan prison at the end of May 1773 and in August reappeared in the Trans-Volga steppes. This time he finds shelter at the Talovoy Umet Stepan Obolyaev, 60 miles from the Yaitsky town. Here Pugachev again "confesses" that he miraculously escaped from death Emperor Peter III and arrived at Yaik to protect ordinary Cossacks from the elders and grant them primordial liberties.
In connection with the flight of Pugachev, the authorities sounded the alarm, special detachments were sent to capture him, who seized the Cossacks and, with the help of torture, tried to find out where the fugitive was.
The Yaik Cossacks were on their guard. Rumors spread with renewed vigor that Peter III was alive, that the authorities were looking for him, and that Pugachev was the tsar who had escaped death.
These events accelerated the course of the uprising. Pugachev announced that he was really Tsar Peter III, that the wicked wife and the nobles decided to kill him in order to rule the people at their own discretion.
Testimonies of contemporaries and eyewitnesses - participants in the uprising describe the appearance of Emelyan Pugachev. He was of medium height, broad at the shoulders, thin at the waist, a little dark-skinned, lean, with dark eyes and hair cut like a Cossack.
This is how Pugachev looks in the portrait, painted during his stay in the Iletsky town.
The original of this portrait has survived to this day and is kept in the collections of the State Historical Museum in. Moscow. The portrait is painted in oil on canvas; its size is 1 yard? vershok by 12? verskov. Icon-painting techniques of writing indicate that the author of the portrait was a self-taught icon painter from the Old Believers. At the top of the portrait, on its left side, the date is set: "September 21, 1773", and on the reverse side there is next inscription: "Emelyan Pugachev comes from the Cossack village of our Orthodox faith belongs to that faith, Ivan's son Prokhorov. This face is written in 1773, September 21 days. "
The dates shown in the portrait completely coincide with the time of E. Pugachev's stay in Ilek. Painting the portrait of the leader of the uprising was not an accidental phenomenon, it had a certain political meaning, namely: to show the portrait of his "muzhik" tsar, who bestowed upon the peasants "eternal freedom". The restoration of the portrait revealed an interesting detail. It turned out that the portrait of Pugachev was painted on the portrait of Catherine II. The portrait of Catherine II was larger, as indicated by the cut edges of the canvas, and was pierced, probably deliberately, in ten places. The torn places were repaired, the portrait of Catherine II was primed and E. Pugachev was painted on it. It is quite possible that the portrait of Catherine II hung in the ataman office of the Iletsk town. Here, in a fit of hatred for the noble queen, he was pierced by the rebels, and then used as material for the image of the peasant Tsar Peter III - Emelyan Pugachev.
Pugachev was distinguished by endurance, courage and knowledge of military affairs. He was perfectly familiar with the artillery of the day. The clerk of the Military Collegium, Ivan Pochitalin, later testified during interrogation: "Pugachev himself knew the rule of how best to keep the artillery in order." Pugachev personally took part in battles with government troops, fighting in the front ranks.
The beginning of the uprising
The events of 1772–1773 paved the way for the organization of a rebel nucleus around E. Pugachev-Peter III. On July 2, 1773, in the Yaitsky town, a cruel sentence was carried out against the leaders of the January 1772 uprising. 16 people were punished with a whip and, after cutting out their nostrils and burning out hard labor signs, they were sent to eternal hard labor in the Nerchinsk factories. 38 people were punished with a whip and exiled to Siberia for settlement. A number of Cossacks were sent to the soldiers. Moreover, a large sum of money was collected from the participants in the uprising to compensate for the ruined property of Ataman Tambovtsev, General Traubenberg and others. The verdict caused a new outburst of indignation among the rank-and-file Cossacks.
Meanwhile, rumors about the appearance on the Yaik of Emperor Peter III and his intention to stand for the ordinary Cossacks quickly spread in the farms and penetrated into the Yaitsky town. In August and the first half of September 1773, the first detachment of Yaik Cossacks gathered around Pugachev. On September 17, the first manifesto of Pugachev - Emperor Peter III - was solemnly announced to the Yaik Cossacks, who gave them the Yaik River "from the peaks to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salary, and lead, and gunpowder, and grain provisions." Having unfurled the previously prepared banners, a detachment of rebels, numbering about 200 people, armed with guns, spears, bows, set out for Yaitsky town.
The main driving force behind the uprising was the Russian peasantry in alliance with the oppressed peoples of Bashkiria and the Volga region. The downtrodden, obscure, completely illiterate peasantry without the leadership of the working class, which had just begun to form, could not create its own organization, could not work out its own program. The insurgents' demands were for the enthronement of a "good king" and the receipt of "eternal will." In the eyes of the rebels, such a tsar was the "peasant tsar", "tsar-father", "Emperor Peter Fedorovich", the former Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev.
On September 18, 1773, the first insurgent detachment, consisting mainly of the Yaik Cossacks and organized on the steppe farms near the Yaitsky town (now Uralsk), headed by E. Pugachev approached the Yaitsky town. The detachment numbered about 200 people. An attempt to take possession of the town ended in failure. It contained a large detachment of regular troops with artillery. The second insurgent attack on September 19 was repulsed by cannons. The insurgent detachment, which replenished its ranks with Cossacks who had gone over to the side of the rebels, moved up the river. Yaiku and on September 20, 1773 he stopped near the Iletsk Cossack town (now the village of Ilek).
Ilek village
In the 18th century, s. Ilek was called the Iletsk Cossack town. The inhabitants of the town - the Iletsk Cossacks - were part of the Yaitsk (Ural) Cossack army.
On the eve of the peasant war, the Iletsk town was a relatively large settlement. Academician PS Pallas, who drove through the Iletsk town in the summer of 1769, describes it as follows: “The left bank of the Yaik is deliberately high, and on it stands the Iletsk Cossack town, fortified with a four-cornered log wall and batteries ... In this Cossack town there are more than three hundred houses, and in the middle of it there is a wooden church. The local Cossacks can put up to five hundred troops and are numbered among the Yaik Cossacks, although they have no part in fishing rights and are forced to provide themselves with arable farming and cattle breeding. "
On September 20, the rebels approached the Iletsk Cossack town and stopped a few kilometers from it. The rebel squad was an organized combat unit... Along the way from the Yaitsky town to the Iletsky town, a general circle was convened according to the old Cossack custom to select the chieftain and the Esauls.
The Yaik Cossack Andrei Ovchinnikov was elected ataman, Dmitry Lysov, also the Yaik Cossack, was elected colonel, and the esaul and the cornet were also elected. Immediately, the first text of the oath was drawn up, and all the Cossacks and the elected chiefs swore allegiance to “the most brilliant, most sovereign, great Emperor Peter Fedorovich to serve and obey in everything, not sparing their belly to the last drop blood ".
Approaching the Iletsk town, the rebel detachment already numbered several hundred people and had three cannons taken from the outposts.
The accession of the Iletsk Cossacks to the uprising or their negative attitude towards it were of great importance for the successful start of the uprising. Therefore, the rebels acted very carefully. Pugachev sent Andrei Ovchinnikov to the town, accompanied by a small number of Cossacks with two decrees of the same content: one of them he had to hand over to the chieftain of the town Lazar Portnov, the other to the Cossacks. Lazar Portnov was supposed to announce the decree at the Cossack circle; if he did not do this, then the Cossacks had to read it themselves.
The decree, written on behalf of Emperor Peter III, said: “And whatever you wish, you will not be denied all benefits and salaries; and your glory will not expire forever; and both you and your descendants be the first to be the first with me, the great, sovereign, to commit. And the salary, provisions, gunpowder and lead will always be enough from me. "
Even before the rebel detachment approached the Iletsk town, Portnov, having received a message from the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Colonel Simonov, about the beginning of the uprising, gathered a Cossack circle and read Simonov's order to take precautionary measures. By his order, the bridge connecting the Iletsk town with the right bank, along which the rebel detachment was moving, was dismantled.
At the same time, rumors about the appearance of Emperor Peter III and the freedoms granted to him reached the Cossacks of the town. The Cossacks were undecided. Andrei Ovchinnikov put an end to their hesitation. The Cossacks decided to meet with honor the rebel detachment and their leader E. Pugachev - Tsar Peter III and join the uprising.
On September 21, a dismantled bridge was established and a detachment of rebels solemnly entered the town, greeted with bells ringing and bread and salt. All Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Pugachev.
Pugachev's detachment stayed in Iletsk for two days. E. Pugachev himself lived in the house of the wealthy Iletsk Cossack Ivan Tvorogov.
Ataman of the town Lazar Portnov was hanged. The reason for the execution was the complaints of the Iletsk Cossacks that he "did great insults to them and ruined them."
A special regiment was formed from the Iletsk Cossacks. The Iletsk Cossack was appointed colonel of the Iletsk army, later one of the main traitors, Ivan Tvorogov. E. Pugachev appointed the competent Iletsk Cossack Maxim Gorshkov secretary. All the suitable artillery of the town was put in order and became part of the artillery of the rebels. E. Pugachev appointed the Yaik Cossack Fyodor Chumakov as the chief of artillery.
Two days later, the rebels, leaving the Iletsk town, crossed to the right bank of the Urals and moved up the Yaik in the direction of Orenburg, the military and administrative center of the huge Orenburg province, which included a huge territory from the Caspian in the south to the borders of the modern Yekaterinburg and Molotovsk regions - in the north. The goal of the rebels was the capture of Orenburg.
In 1900, s. Ilek was visited by the famous Russian writer V.G. Korolenko, collecting material on Pugachev and getting to know the places of the peasant uprising. Korolenko wanted to see the remains of an ancient fortress, a bridge on which the Iletsk Cossacks met Pugachev's detachment. And he turned to one of the connoisseurs of antiquity. “He was sitting in the courtyard of his house,” writes V. G. Korolenko in his essay, “over the very steep of the high Ural coast. We sat down on a bench next to each other. The river rolled its waves under our feet, we could see its sands, shallows, meadows ...
Ivan Yakovlevich smiled at my question.
This, he said, is almost the entire old fortress. Only this corner remained ... The rest was absorbed by Yaik Gorynych ... Over there, in the very middle of the river was the house where I was born ... "
What remained under V.G.Korolenko from the Iletsk fortress has long been washed away by the turbid, fast spring waters of the Urals. On the site of the Iletsk town of the Pugachev era, there are now meadows and green coastal groves of the right bank of the Urals.
More than a hundred years ago, Lieutenant A. Ryabinin, the author of a detailed description of the Ural Cossack army, wrote down the legendary legend about Pugachev in Ilek. According to the legend, told to A. Ryabinin by one old man, Pugachev was conspired "from a bullet, from a knife, from poison and other dangers, that's why he was never even wounded." “When he began to enter the Iletsk town,” the old man said, “his cannon did not want to go to the bridge. No matter how much they dragged her, no matter how much they harnessed the horses, they could not move it from the bridge. Then Pugachev got angry, ordered to whip the cannon with whips, and then chop off its ears and throw it into the Yaik-river. So what do you think, sir, - said the old man, turning to me, - as a cannon explodes in a human voice, only a groan and a rumble went all over the town. You don’t believe, ”he added, noticing that I had smiled,“ ask people, and now it’s sometimes in the water it moans so that it’s far away ”.
In an epic style, the same storyteller told A. Ryabinin the legend about Lazar Portnov. In the legend, actual events are intertwined with folk fantasy. “As Pugachev began to enter,” the old man said, “they left the town to meet him with icons and banners, with bread and salt. He accepted the bread and salt, venerated the icons and called the chieftain to him. And at that time Timofey Lazarevich was ataman, did you hear tea? Timofey Lazarevich did not go, but they brought him by force. So Pugachev began to tell him to bow to him, speak another, speak a third time. Lazarevich did not want to bow and reviled Pugachev with all sorts of nasty words. Then Pugachev said:
"I wanted to live with you, Timofey Lazarevich, in love and in harmony, I wanted to eat from the same cup, drink from the same ladle, I wanted to give you a brocade caftan, apparently not to happen, to that business." And then he ordered to hang Lazarevich in the place of the front, for fear of all his opponents. "
Lower egg distance
On September 24, a rebel detachment left the Iletsk town and moved up the Yaik. The first on the way of the detachment was the Rassypnaya fortress. In the era under consideration, on the entire right bank of the Urals from Orenburg to the Iletsk town, there were only four settlements: Chernorechenskaya fortresses (Chernorechye village, Pavlovsky district), Tatishchev (Tatishchevo village, Perevolotsky district), Nizhneozernaya (Nizhneozernoye village, Krasnokholmskiy district) and Rasnokholmskiy district. (Rasypnoe village, Iletsk district).
All these fortresses were part of the so-called Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance of the Orenburg military line (this was the name of the system of fortifications along the Ural river). The main one was the Tatishchev fortress. The commander of this distance was also in it.
Between these fortresses, as well as along the entire line, on high elevated places along the banks of the Urals, observation posts were built at a certain distance from each other - pickets, outposts, lighthouses. Cossack teams were usually here only in the summer. On each of them there was a high observation tower, and next to it was a lighthouse, that is, a structure of poles wrapped in straw at the top or having a vessel with resin. In case of alarm, the guards set fire to the lighthouse. The pillar of flame was visible from a nearby lighthouse, whose guards also set fire to their lighthouse. Thus, the news of alarm quickly reached the fortress, far ahead of the mounted Cossack galloping with a message to the fortress.
The names of the tracts along the banks of the Urals - "Mayachnaya Gora", "Mayak" - indicate the location of the former Cossack observation posts with a "beacon".
The fortifications, which bore the loud name of fortresses, were very simple, uncomplicated. Built on the high right bank of the Urals, they were surrounded by an earthen rampart and a ditch. A wooden wall with a gate ran along the shaft. The fortress was armed with several cast-iron cannons. The state of these fortresses is perfectly conveyed by A. Pushkin in the description of the Belogorsk fortress in the story "The Captain's Daughter".
The population of the fortresses consisted of Cossacks and soldiers' teams, consisting mainly of elderly soldiers and invalids. The soldiers carried out garrison service, and the Cossacks had a guard, observation and reconnaissance service on the line. The Cossacks carried out life-long military service. In addition, their duties were also underwater duty along the line.
The composition of the Cossack population of the fortresses consisted of a wide variety of elements: fugitive Russian peasants enrolled in the Cossacks, exiles settled at the fortresses, various service people transferred from the Volga fortified lines, retired soldiers, etc. The Cossack population consisted mostly of Russians, but in some fortresses there were many Cossack Tatars, immigrants from Bashkiria and the Volga region, included in the Cossack estate.
Like all the peasantry of Russia in the 18th century, the Cossack population of the fortresses of the Orenburg region experienced the same oppression of the feudal-serf regime. Therefore, the promise of "eternal liberty" proclaimed by E. Pugachev was as close and dear to the Cossacks as to the entire peasantry, and they readily poured into the ranks of the rebels. The territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, organized in 1748, began from the Rassypnaya fortress.
Rassypnoe village
The Rassypnaya fortress was founded somewhat later than the Iletsk Cossack town. In the year of the beginning of the uprising, there were already 70 households in the Rassypnaya fortress. Settlers were attracted here by lakes rich in fish, abundant mowing and comfortable seats for arable farming.
Judging by the descriptions in the documents, the fortress had a quadrangular shape, was dug in with a moat, and fortified with an earthen rampart with a wooden fence built on it. Two gates were made in the rampart and the wooden wall, and two wooden bridge... Inside the fortress there was the commandant's house, a military storeroom, a wooden church and the houses of the inhabitants of the fortress.
The fortress was armed with several old cast-iron cannons. Before the approach of the insurgent detachment, the commandant of the fortress was Major Seconds Velovsky. The garrison of the fortress consisted of a company of soldiers and several dozen Cossacks, led by their chieftain.
On September 24, a detachment of E. Pugachev left the Iletsk town and, before reaching the Loose Fortress, a few kilometers from it, settled down for the night by the Zazhivnaya River. On the morning of September 25, the rebels appeared in sight of the fortress. They sent two Cossacks to the fortress with a decree from E. Pugachev, which said that for going over to the side of the rebels, the Cossacks would be awarded "eternal liberty, rivers, seas, all benefits, salaries, provisions, gunpowder, lead, ranks and honor."
The commandant of the fortress Velovsky rejected the appeal to surrender and go over to the side of the rebels. The rebels began their assault. Velovsky opened cannon fire on the besiegers. The rebels answered with their guns, and then, rushing into the attack, smashed the gates of the fortress and burst into the fortress. One of his contemporaries in his notes indicates that the Cossacks during the assault went over to the side of the rebels and dismantled two walls of the fortress. Through the gap formed, the rebels broke into the fortress.
E. Pugachev later recalled in his testimony that Major Velovsky with two officers locked himself in the commandant's house and fired back from the windows. The Cossacks wanted to set fire to the house, but he forbade "... so as not to burn out the entire fortress." Velovsky and two officers were hanged for armed resistance and for inflicted losses. The Cossacks of the fortress and the soldiers swore allegiance to Tsar Peter III, the Tsar who marched in defense of the oppressed peasantry.
On the same day, taking cannons, gunpowder and cannonballs from the fortress and leaving a new ataman in Loose, a detachment of rebels moved up the Yaik to the next fortress - Nizhneozernaya. Before reaching her, the rebels stopped for the night.
Situation in Orenburg
To understand the subsequent events, you need to remember what happened at that time in Orenburg, the residence of the Orenburg governor Reinsdorp. Let's turn to the archival documents. Thirteen thick leather-bound volumes contain Reinsdorp's correspondence from the period of the rebellion.
Gray sheets of old cursive writing take us to the era of the uprising, and one after another there are pictures of the events on Yaik in the fall of 1773 ...
At the moment when E. Pugachev solemnly entered the Iletsk town and the Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Peter III, the couriers of the commandant of the Loose Fortress Velovsky galloped with a report on the movement of the rebels to the Tatishchev Fortress. On the same day, the commandant of this fortress, the commander of the Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance, Colonel Yelagin, sent a report to Orenburg to Reinsdorp outlining Velovsky's report on the insurgents' approach to the Iletsk town. Elagin's report was received in Orenburg on September 22.
Contemporaries say that on September 22, at about 10 pm, a courier rode up to Orenburg with a message about the capture of the Iletsk town (probably it was Elagin's courier) and came to Reinsdorp in the midst of a solemn ball held in honor of the coronation day of Catherine II.
The rumor about the beginning of the uprising spread throughout the city. Until that day, according to P. I. Rychkov, the city dwellers knew almost nothing about the uprising. At the same time, Governor Rainsdorp himself was aware of the impending events. On September 13, 1773, he received a decree from the State Military Collegium on the flight of Pugachev from the Kazan prison and taking measures to capture him, and on September 15 - a report from the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Colonel Simonov, dated September 10, about "a certain impostor wandering across the steppe" in search of whom Simonov sent a small detachment. Finally, on September 21, Reinsdorp receives a report from Simonov on September 18 with the message that "the famous impostor is already in the meeting and this day, when he gets even more, he intends to be in the local city." These alarming news were known only to a narrow circle of the Orenburg military administration.
On September 21, Reinsdorp sends an order to the chief commandant of the city of Orenburg, Major General Wallenstern, to put the garrison on alert. In the following days, Reinsdorp received additional messages about the movement of the rebels up the Yaik and, in particular, about their capture of the Iletsk town.
While E. Pugachev was in the Iletsk town and was preparing to march up the Yaik, Reinsdorp also formed military forces to defeat the rebels. On September 23, he sent an order to the commandant, Major Semyonov, to Stavropol to send 500 Stavropol Kalmyks to Yaitsk town with an order to defeat them in case of meeting with the rebels.
On September 24, Reinsdorp sent from Orenburg to meet Pugachev the corps of Baron Bilov, consisting of 410 people, including 150 Orenburg Cossacks under the command of the centurion Timofey Padurov.
On the same day, Reinsdorp sent an order to the Seitov Sloboda on the preparation of 300 horse and armed Tatars, ready to immediately, by order, march to Orenburg; On September 25, an order was sent to Ufa: to collect up to 500 Bashkirs and send them to the Iletsk town to suppress the uprising; On September 26, an order was sent to the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Lieutenant Colonel-Simonov, about sending a military detachment under the command of Major Naumov up the Yaik, following the detachment of E. Pugachev and towards the detachment of Brigadier Bilov.
Reinsdorp's plan was as follows: to strangle the uprising, trapping the rebels in a ring with the help of detachments from Orenburg, Yaitsky town and Stavropol.
The method of bribery was not forgotten either. Reinsdorp's decrees promised 500 rubles for the capture of Pugachev alive, and 250 rubles for the delivery of the dead.
With secret letters dated September 24, Reinsdorp informs the Astrakhan and Kazan governors about the beginning of the uprising, and on September 25 sends a report to Catherine II about the outbreak of the uprising and the dispatch of Bilov's corps.
On September 25, when the rebels stormed the Loose Fortress and then marched on the Nizhneozernaya fortress, a detachment of Brigadier Bilov, replenishing their ranks and artillery with soldiers and cannons from the Chernorechenskaya and Tatishcheva fortresses, arrived late in the evening at the Chesnokovsky outpost located between the Nizhneozernaya fortresses and the Tatischeva fortresses. It was probably located on the site of the modern village of Chesnokovka, Krasnokholmsky District. Here Brigadier Bilov receives a report from the commandant of the Nizhneozernaya fortress, Major Kharlov, written on September 25, about the capture of the Rassypnaya fortress by the rebels, about the appearance of rebel forces near Nizhneozernaya and asking for help. Frightened by this report, Bilov, fearing the encirclement and apparently not relying on his command, stood indecisively for several hours at the outpost, turned back to the fortress to Tatishcheva. Bilov's retreat made it easier for the rebels to capture the fortress of Nizhneozernaya.
The village of Nizhneozernoe
Nizhneozernaya fortress was founded in 1754, that is, just 20 years before the start of the uprising. In the era of the uprising, there were about 70 households in the Lower Lake Fortress. In addition to the excellent natural protection - a high steep cliff from the side of the river, the fortress, according to the surviving descriptions, was surrounded by an earthen rampart, dug in and had a log wall.
As in other fortresses along the river. Ural, inside Nizhneozernaya there was a commandant's house, an earthen powder magazine, a military warehouse, houses of Cossacks, soldiers and a wooden church. The fortress was armed with several old cast-iron cannons. The fortress garrison consisted of a small detachment of soldiers and Cossacks. Major Kharlov was the commandant of the fortress.
Late in the evening of September 25, the commandant of the fortress learned from the prisoners captured by the scouts he had sent about the capture of Rasypnaya and that the rebel detachment was only 7 versts from Nizhneozernaya.
Major Kharlov sent a report with this information to Baron Bilov, who was standing with the troops at the Chesnokovsky outpost, after which Bilov retreated to the Tatishchev fortress.
Rumors about the decrees of the leader of the uprising E. Pugachev, granting the Cossacks and all working people "eternal freedom", quickly reached the fortress of Nizhneozernaya. The proclamation of "eternal liberty" satisfied the cherished desires of the Cossacks. On the same night (from 25 to 26 September) 50 Cossacks went to the rebels. The soldiers who remained in the fortress had no desire to fight: the slogans of the uprising were also close and dear to them.
At dawn on September 26, the rebels launched an attack on the fortress. Kharlov opened fire from the cannons. The rebels answered. The exchange of fire lasted for about two hours. Then the rebels rushed to the assault, broke the gates and broke into the fortress. In the ensuing skirmish, Kharlov, officers and several soldiers were killed. According to other reports, Major Kharlov, ensign Figner and Kabalerov, clerk Skopin and corporal Bikbai were hanged.
According to the recording of A.S. Pushkin, made while passing through the Nizhneozernaya fortress, Bikbai was hanged by E. Pugachev for espionage. AS Pushkin's extracts from the archives indicate: "Pugachev in the Nizhneozernaya fortress hanged the commandant for drowning gunpowder."
After the fortress passed into the hands of the rebels, its inhabitants swore allegiance to E. Pugachev, and the soldiers were enlisted in the ranks of the rebels.
On the same day, taking the guns, gunpowder and shells and leaving their commandant in the fortress, E. Pugachev's detachment moved further up the river. Ural to the fortress Tatishchev (now the village of Tatishchevo) and, having walked about 12 miles, spent the night at the Suharnikov farms.
A.S. Pushkin's travel notebook contains several entries made by him during a short stop in the village. All of them were used in The History of Pugachev. Three entries refer directly to the personality of E. Pugachev. Here is one of them.
“Pugachev came in the morning. The Cossack began to guard against him. " "Your royal majesty, do not drive up, they will kill you unequally from a cannon." "You are an old man," Pugachev answered him, "do cannons pour on the tsars?"
It is interesting that the last entry of A.S. Pushkin almost literally coincides with the testimony of one of E. Pugachev's associates, the Yaik Cossack Timofei Myasnikov. Timofey Myasnikov showed:
“He, Myasnikov, like others, served him faithfully; at the same time, everyone was encouraged not only by rivers, forests, fishing and other liberties, but also by his courage and agility. For, when it happened (to be) on attacks to the city of Orenburg, or on some battles against military teams, then (Pugachev); he was always ahead himself, not a little afraid of the firing of either their guns or their guns. And when some of his well-wishers sometimes persuaded him to take care of his stomach, Pugachev would say, smiling: “The cannon will not kill the tsar! Where is it seen that the cannon would kill the king? "
This curious coincidence speaks of the reality of the legend written down by A.S. Pushkin, possibly from a still living participant in the uprising. Evidently, E. Pugachev used this half-joking expression more than once. And the case transmitted to A. S. Pushkin in Nizhneozernaya and included by him in the "History of Pugachev" could really take place during the capture of Nizhneozernaya fortress on September 26, 1773.
In 1890, the 80-year-old Cossack from Nizhneozerninsk, E. A. Donskov, whose grandfather served as a clerk for E. Pugachev, said that after the uprising, “a rigorous check was carried out. If anyone said: "I served the Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich," they were not persecuted, but if they said: "I was at Pugach's," they were exiled, punished with sticks and, in some cases, they were beaten to death. "
The village of Tatishchevo
The village of Tatishchevo is one of the first Russian settlements-fortresses on the banks of the Yaik. It was founded in the summer of 1736 at the mouth of the Kamysh-Samara river by the first head of the Orenburg expedition, IK Kirilov, and was named the Kamysh-Samara fortress.
The choice of the site for the foundation of the fortress was not accidental. A short portage to the upper reaches of the river began from here. Samara (from the village of Tatishchev to the village of Perevolotsk, located on the Samara river, only 25 kilometers), through this place there was a road down the river. Ural.
In 1738, Kirilov's successor V. N. Tatishchev strengthens the fortress with a rampart, a moat and calls it by his own name.
With the foundation of fortresses along the Urals (Chernorechenskaya, Nizhneozernaya and Rassypnaya), the Tatishchev fortress acquired an important strategic importance as a junction point from where the roads branched up and down the river. Ural and to the west - along the river. Samara. Possession of it provided control over these roads. Therefore, throughout the 18th century, the Tatishchev Fortress was considered the main fortress of the Lower Yaitskaya distance. Its subordination included the fortresses of Chernorechenskaya, Nizhne-Ozernaya, Rassypnaya and Perevolotskaya.
In view of the important strategic importance of the Tatishchev fortress, its fortifications were somewhat better than in other fortresses at a distance: it had an earthen rampart with a moat, a log wall, batteries for cannons, and better artillery than in other fortresses. There were warehouses with ammunition, provisions, artillery supplies.
Academician PS Pallas, who drove through the Tatishchev fortress in 1769, that is, four years before the start of the uprising, describes the fortifications of the fortress as follows: "It was built in an irregular quadrangle, surrounded by a log wall, slingshots and reinforced with batteries in the corners."
The population in the Tatishchevaya fortress was greater than in other fortresses along Yaik. According to PI Rychkov and PS Pallas, in the 60s of the 18th century there were up to 200 households in it. Pallas emphasizes that "this place in Orenburg can be called the largest, most populous of all the fortresses along the Yaitskaya line."
During his trip to the places of the Pugachev uprising, A.S. Pushkin twice in September 1833 drove through the village. Tatishchevo: on the road from Samara to Orenburg and on the road from Orenburg to Uralsk.
In memory of the visit to the village by the great Russian poet, a memorial plaque was erected in Tatishchev.
The Belogorsk fortress from Pushkin's story "The Captain's Daughter" is connected with the village of Tatishchevo. A.S. Pushkin timed the location of the fortress described in the story to the location of the Tatishcheva fortress. “The Belogorsk fortress,” we read in the novel, “was forty versts from Orenburg. The road went along the steep bank of the Yaik ... (chapter "The Fortress"). Nizhneozernaya was about twenty-five versts from our fortress (chapter "Pugachevshchina") ". Indeed, according to the "Topography of the Orenburg province" by P. I. Rychkov, which A. S. Pushkin used when working on " The history of Pugachev", Tatishchev Fortress is shown 54 miles from Orenburg and 28 miles from Nizhneozernaya.
The village of Tatishchevo in the history of the first period of the peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev occupies a special place. Two major events of the first period of the uprising (September 1773 - March 1774) are associated with it: the brilliant success of E. Pugachev and his associates in the assault on the Tatishchev Fortress on September 27, 1773, which ended in the seizure of the fortress and the transfer of its garrison to the side of the peasant army, and the defeat of the peasant army on March 22, 1774, suffered by it in a battle with government troops under the command of Prince P. Golitsyn, which decided the fate of the uprising within the territory of the modern Orenburg region and moved the uprising to Bashkiria and to the areas of the right bank of the Volga.
This is how the events unfolded on September 27, 1773, when the rebels approached the Tatishchev Fortress. Its garrison after the return of Bilov's detachment amounted to at least a thousand people. The fortress was armed with 13 guns.
At dawn on September 27, the patrols of the rebels appeared in front of the fortress. A. S. Pushkin in his "History of Pugachev" reports that the rebels "drove up to the walls, persuading the garrison to disobey the boyars and surrender voluntarily."
E. Pugachev recalled in his testimony that even before the rebel detachment approached the fortress, he had sent a manifesto to the Tatishchev fortress.
The rebels also made an attempt to enter into negotiations with the garrison, sending a group of Cossacks to the fortress for this purpose. A group of Cossacks also left the fortress for negotiations. The rebels urged them to surrender voluntarily, saying that Tsar Peter Fedorovich himself was going with the rebels.
When they returned, the Cossacks passed this on to Baron Bilov. The latter ordered to tell the rebels that all this is "lies". The delegation of the rebels answered: "when you persist so much, then don't blame us afterwards." The negotiations were broken off. The fortress, which had stopped the cannon fire during the negotiations, again began to fire on the insurgent units. The artillery of the rebels answered from their own guns. Colonel Elagin suggested that Brigadier Bilov leave the fortress and fight outside its walls. Bilov refused, fearing that the Cossacks and soldiers would go over to the side of the rebels. The cannon duel lasted eight hours.
In order to impede the movement of the rebels up the Kamysh-Samara River, Brigadier Bilov sends a detachment of Orenburg Cossacks under the command of centurion Padurov before the start of the assault on the fortress. Detachment Padurov completely went over to the side of the rebels.
The assault on the fortress begins. On the one hand, the rebels attacked led by the Yaik Cossack Andrei Vitoshnov, on the other hand, Pugachev himself led the attack. The attack was repulsed, but the sharpness and resourcefulness of Pugachev came to the rescue. Near the wooden wall of the fortress stood stables with stacks of hay stacked beside them. E. Pugachev ordered them to be set on fire. The weather was windy, smoke and flames drove to the fortress.
Soon the wooden wall of the fortress caught fire, and from it the fire spread to the houses inside the fortress. Cossacks, soldiers who lived in the fortress with their homes, rushed to extinguish the fire and save property. Taking advantage of the confusion, the rebels broke into the fortress and took possession of it. During the storming of the fortress, Brigadier Bilov and Colonel Yelagin were killed. The soldiers and Cossacks offered no resistance.
Having entered the fortress, Pugachev ordered to extinguish the fire. The captured soldiers were taken out of the fortress and sworn in. In the Tatishcheva fortress, the rebels seized a significant supply of provisions and money, replenished their ranks and especially artillery, capturing, in the words of PI Rychkov, "the best artillery with its supplies and servants."
The number of E. Pugachev's detachment after the capture of the Tatishcheva fortress reached over 2,000 people.
The transfer of the Tatishchev Fortress into the hands of the rebels was of great importance for the further development of the uprising. The way to Orenburg was opened. The Chernorechenskaya fortress, which was on the way to Orenburg, could not hold back the movement of the rebels. On September 28, the garrison of the fortress was evacuated to Orenburg, abandoning provisions. Only three dozen miles of straight road separated the detachment of E. Pugachev from Orenburg.
Several legends and stories about Pugachev are associated with the village of Tatishcheva.
A. S. Pushkin, passing twice through Tatishchevo during his trip to Orenburg and Uralsk in September 1833, made the following entry in his travel book: “In Tatischeva, Pugachev, having come a second time, asked the ataman if there was food in the fortress. Ataman, at the preliminary request of the old Cossacks, who feared hunger, replied no. Pugachev himself went to inspect the shops and, finding them full, hung the chieftain at the outposts ... "There were indeed stores of provisions in Tatishcheva, and after the suppression of the uprising, the Orenburg Orenburg Provincial Masters' Commission tried to collect provisions taken from the warehouse by the residents of the fortress" at the permission "of E. Pugacheva.
In the same travel notes of A. S. Pushkin we read another short note characterizing the personality of E. Pugachev: "In Tatishcheva, Pugachev hanged a Yaik Cossack for drunkenness."
A curious legend about E. Pugachev's stay in the Tatishchev Fortress was recorded in 1939 from a resident of the village. Arkhipovka, Sakmarsky district, I. I. Mozhartsev, two great-grandfathers of which, according to him, participated in the uprising of E. Pugachev.
According to I.I. Mozhartsev's story, E. Pugachev helped build a hut in Tatishcheva for the widow Ignatiha and gave her in marriage. I remembered E. Pugacheva until the grave. “And not only Ignatiha remembered the deceased with a kind word. Pugachev was a good man before the peasants, ”concludes I. Mozhartsev.
The village of Chernorechye
The mastery of the Tatishcheva fortress opened two roads for Pugachev and his detachment: down the river. Samara - in the Volga region, in areas densely populated by serfs, and up the river. Urals - to the city of Orenburg - the administrative center of the huge Orenburg province. Pugachev and his associates chose the second path. On the way to Orenburg there was the Chernorechenskaya fortress (now the village of Chernorechye, Pavlovsky district), the last fortress in the Urals before Orenburg.
S. Chernorechye was founded in about the same years as Tatishchevo. In 1742, in the Chernorechenskaya fortress, there were already 30 huts and 9 dugouts with 153 inhabitants. Later, the Orenburg authorities settled here exiles, exiled to the Orenburg region for permanent residence. In 1773, that is, in the year of the uprising, it had 58 households.
The inhabitants of the fortress were servicemen and retired Cossacks, servicemen and retired soldiers and exiles. The commandant of the fortress at that time was Major Krause. After the brigadier Bilov, heading towards the rebels, took most of the soldiers from the garrison of the fortress, only 137 people remained in it. During the days of the uprising, between the Chernorechenskaya and Tatishcheva fortresses, there was the only settlement - a farm belonging to P.I. Rychkov. It was located on the site of the present s. Rychkov. There was a Cossack guard post near the farm. After E. Pugachev took the Tatishchev Fortress, Rychkov's serfs and Cossacks joined the rebels. The inhabitants of the Chernorechenskaya fortress and its garrison were also waiting. Pugacheva.
On September 28, Major Krause received an order from Reinsdorp to abandon the fortress in case of imminent danger. On the same day, claiming to be sick, he left for Orenburg, leaving the fortress under the command of Lieutenant Ivanov. The drumming informed the inhabitants of the fortress about the evacuation. But only a few residents left for Orenburg, while the majority stayed and waited for Pugachev's arrival.
On September 29, E. Pugachev entered the Chernorechenskaya fortress. The inhabitants of the fortress solemnly greeted Pugachev and swore allegiance to him.
With the occupation of the Chernorechenskaya fortress, the road to Orenburg was opened. Only 18 versts on a straight road separated Orenburg from the Chernorechenskaya fortress. With a swift, rapid offensive, the rebels could capture Orenburg, the fortifications of which were in the same neglected state as in the Chernorechenskaya fortress. A contemporary of these events reports that they entered the city on carts through an earthen rampart and a moat without any difficulty, and the city gates did not have constipation. The rebels missed this opportunity. After spending the night in the Chernorechenskaya fortress, they moved not directly to Orenburg, but bypassing it, up the river. Ural and its tributary Sakmara, to Seitov Sloboda and Sakmara Cossack town. The rebels hoped to replenish their ranks with Tatars and Sakmar Cossacks. Kargaly Tatars came to the Chernorechenskaya fortress to invite E. Pugachev to the Seitov settlement.
During the uprising, untouched steppes were spread between the Chernorechenskaya fortress and the Seitovaya settlement, and dense coastal forests grew near the Urals and Sakmara. Only above the mouth of the river. Sakmary, opposite the Berdskaya settlement, there were several farmsteads. They belonged to the Orenburg higher authorities and the nobles: Reinsdorp, Myasoedov, Sukin, Tevkelev, etc.
Moving to the Chernorechenskaya fortress, the rebels entered the farmstead and took away the property of the nobles. The serfs living on the farmsteads joined the ranks of the growing rebel army. The rebels also visited the Reinsdorp farm, where there was a large house of 12 rooms, furnished with luxurious furniture. A contemporary reports that E. Pugachev, entering the rooms of Reinsdorp's house, said to his comrades-in-arms: “This is how my governors live so gloriously, and what they need such chambers for. As you can see, I myself live in a simple hut. " With these words, Pugachev wanted to emphasize that if the nobles build luxurious mansions with funds squeezed out of the peasantry, then he, the peasant Tsar Peter III, is fighting for the interests of the people, does not need luxury mansions and is content with a simple peasant hut.
On the way to Seitova Sloboda, E. Pugachev's detachment spent the night at Tevkelev's farm and on October 1 set out to Seitovaya Sloboda.
Kargala village
By the time of the peasant uprising led by E. Pugachev, Seitova Sloboda, one of the first settlements in the Orenburg region, was a fairly large settlement. The population of the settlement consisted of several thousand people. The main part of the population of the settlement was made up of Tatars, peasants, a smaller part - merchants. The peasants were engaged in cattle breeding, agriculture, various crafts and were hired by merchants as workers, clerks. Merchants carried on a large trade with Central Asia and Kazakhstan, rented and bought land from the Bashkirs for farms.
The approach of E. Pugachev's detachment to Seitovaya Sloboda was not a surprise to its population. Rumors about the beginning of the uprising were confirmed by order of Reinsdorp. On September 26, by order of Reinsdorp, a detachment of 300 men set out from Kargaly to help Brigadier Bilov, but after learning about the capture of the Tatishcheva fortress by the rebels, he returned from the road. On September 28, a military council took place in Orenburg, which decided to transfer all Tatars from the settlement to Orenburg. But only a very insignificant part of the population left the settlement for Orenburg, mainly merchants and wealthy peasants. The majority remained in the settlement and sent their representatives to Pugachev in the Chernorechenskaya fortress with an invitation to come to the Seitov settlement.
On October 1, the population of the Seitovaya Sloboda solemnly greeted E. Pugachev, who had been here several times and later, coming from his headquarters, the Berdskaya Sloboda.
The population of the Kargalinskaya Sloboda took an active part in the uprising. The inhabitants of the settlement formed a special regiment of the Kargaly Tatars. He fought bravely in the ranks of the rebel army near Orenburg. PI Rychkov, in his notes on the siege of Orenburg, writes that in the battle on January 9, 1774, near Orenburg, the Kargaly Tatars "very bravely let loose." The inhabitants of the settlement provided the rebels with food supplies, sending him to the camp in Berdy.
Considering the significant role of the Kargalinskaya settlement in the uprising, E. Pugachev and the rebels called it Petersburg.
There were literate people among the Kargaly Tatars. With their help, on the day of E. Pugachev's arrival in Kargala, a decree was drawn up in the Tatar language, addressed to the Bashkirs, and sent to Bashkiria. Written with great feeling and enthusiasm, the decree called the Bashkirs to an uprising and granted every liberty: "lands, waters, forests, residences, grasses, rivers, fish, bread, laws, arable lands, bodies, monetary salaries, lead and gunpowder." “And arrive like the steppe animals,” the decree said, ie. live as freely as wild animals in the steppe.
On October 2, the insurgent detachment moved up the river. Sakmare in the Sakmara Cossack town. From s. Kargaly to the village. Sakmarsky 16 kilometers.
Sakmarskoe village
In the village of Sakmarskoye, the oldest Russian settlement in the region, there were over 150 households during the uprising.
The news of the uprising, of course, quickly reached the Sakmara town. They were confirmed by the order of Reinsdorp on September 24, who ordered the chieftain of the town Danila Donskov to send 120 Cossacks up the river. Yaiku for guard duty. Ataman Donskov carried out the order. A small number of service Cossacks remained in the town. A few days later, Reinsdorp ordered the rest of the service Cossacks with all the artillery and military supplies to arrive in Orenburg, break the bridge over Sakmara, and the entire population of the town to move to the Krasnogorsk fortress. Service Cossacks with the ataman, with guns and military supplies moved to Orenburg. All the rest of the population - retired Cossacks, Cossack families and others - remained at home and did not allow the bridge over the river to be destroyed. Sakmaru. The inhabitants of the town were waiting for Pugachev.
On the night of October 1–2, prominent participants in the uprising Maxim Shigaev and Pyotr Mitryasov arrived in the Sakmara town with a group of Cossacks and in a Cossack circle read out the decree of E. Pugachev - Tsar Peter III. Sakmara Cossacks joined the uprising. On October 2, the population of the town greeted Pugachev with great honor and took the oath. After taking the oath, a detachment led by Pugachev entered the Sakmara town to the sound of bells ringing.
Sakmara Cossacks took an active part in the peasant war. During interrogations, E. Pugachev testified that the Sakmarian Cossacks "were inseparable with him." Of the Sakmarian inhabitants, a prominent participant in the uprising was the Cossack Ivan Borodin, a village clerk.
Pugachev did not stop at the Sakmara town. On the same day, the rebels crossed the bridge over the river. Sakmaru and camped on her left side. They stayed here until October 4. Copper mines were located near the Sakmara town. They belonged to the miners Tverdyshev and Myasnikov, who owned copper and iron works in Bashkiria. Copper ore, mined in the mines, was sent to Preobrazhensky, Voskresensky, Verkhotorsky and other copper smelters. With the arrival of Pugachev in the village. Sakmara miners quit their jobs and joined the uprising.
An interesting episode took place near the Sakmara town. On October 3, a man of about 60 years old came to the camp, in a torn dress, with torn out nostrils and hard labor marks on his cheeks. He went up to Pugachev, who was standing next to the Yaik Cossack Maxim Shigaev, one of the leaders of the uprising. “What kind of person? - E. Pugachev asked Shigaeva. “This is Khlopusha, the poorest person,” answered Shigaev. Shigaev knew Khlopusha, since he was in the Orenburg prison with him, having been arrested for participating in the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks in 1772. E. Pugachev ordered to feed Khlopushu. Khlopusha took out four sealed envelopes from his bosom and handed them to E. Pugachev. These were the orders of the Orenburg authorities to the Yaik, Orenburg and Iletsk Cossacks to stop the uprising, to seize E. Pugachev and bring him to Orenburg.
Khlopusha confessed to Pugachev that he had been sent by Governor Reinsdorv to convey orders to the Cossacks, dissuade them from the uprising, burn gunpowder and shells, rivet the guns and hand Pugachev over to the Orenburg authorities. Having gone over to the side of the rebels, Khlopusha eventually becomes one of Pugachev's closest assistants. At the Ural mining factories, where he is sent, he raises workers, Bashkirs, organizes the casting of cannons and cannonballs. Pugachev appoints him colonel of the detachment of the Ural workers.
From the camp near the Sakmarsky town E. Pugachev sent a decree to the commandant of the Krasnogorsk fortress, to the Cossacks sent from the Sakmarsky town to carry out guard duty in the Krasnogorsk and Verkhneozernaya fortresses, and "people of all titles." The decree called for serving the new, peasant tsar "faithfully and invariably to the last drop of blood." For the service, the people and the Cossacks complained about "the cross and the beard, the river and the earth, herbs and seas and monetary salary, and grain provisions, and lead, and gunpowder, and eternal liberty."
The decree to the Sakmar Cossacks, having become widespread, raised the peasants, Cossacks, workers, oppressed nationalities against the nobles and landowners.
On October 4, E. Pugachev left the camp near Sakmarsky town and went to Orenburg. Before reaching the city, the insurgent army stopped at Kamyshovoye Lake, near the Berdskaya settlement, for the night. The inhabitants of the Berdskaya settlement joined the rebels. The insurgent army consisted of about 2500 people, of which about 1500 Yaik, Iletsk, Orenburg Cossacks, 300 soldiers, 500 Kargaly Tatars. The rebels had about 20 cannons and 10 barrels of gunpowder.
Orenburg
Orenburg in the era of the uprising was administrative center the vast Orenburg province, on the territory of which such Western European states as Belgium, Holland, France could freely accommodate.
The Orenburg province included in its territory the modern West Kazakhstan, Aktobe, Kustanai, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions, part of the Samara and Yekaterinburg regions, the territory of Bashkiria.
At the same time, Orenburg was the main fortress on the border military line along the river. Yaiku and the center of exchange trade with Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the south-east of Russia.
The capture of Orenburg was of great importance for the further course of the uprising: firstly, it was possible to take weapons and various military equipment from the warehouses of the fortress, and secondly, the capture of the capital of the province would raise the authority of the rebels among the population. That is why they so persistently and stubbornly tried to seize Orenburg.
In terms of its size, Orenburg during the Pugachev uprising was many times smaller than the present city of Orenburg. Its entire area was located in the central part of the city of Orenburg, adjacent to the r. Urals, and was 677 fathoms long (about 3300 meters) and 570 fathoms wide (about 1150 meters).
As the main fortress in the southeast of Russia, Orenburg had more solid fortifications than other fortresses along the river. Yaiku. The city was surrounded by a high earthen rampart in the form of an oval, fortified with 10 bastions and 2 half-bastions. The height of the rampart reached 4 meters and more, and the width - 13 meters. The total length of the shaft from its outer side was 5 versts. In some places, the rampart was faced with slabs of red sandstone. On the outer side of the rampart, there was a ditch about 4 meters deep and 10 meters wide.
The city had four gates: Sakmarskie (where Sovetskaya Street adjoins the House of Soviets Square), Orskie (at the intersection of Pushkinskaya Street with Studencheskaya), Samarskie, or Chernorechenskie (at intersection of M. Gorky and Burzyantsev streets).
Academician Falk, who visited Orenburg in 1771, reports that the streets of the city are unpaved and in spring there is "great mud" and in summer "heavy dust".
With the exception of a few churches, the governor's house, the provincial office building, the guest house and some other buildings, the city's buildings were wooden.
Gostiny Dvor, a city bazaar surrounded by a massive brick wall, stood out among the city buildings. Outwardly, it looked more like a fortress than a place of trade.
On the east side, the town was adjoined by the village of Orenburg Cossacks - Vorstadt. The houses of the Cossacks began under the very walls of the fortress. A Cossack church stood on the steepest bank of the high bank of the Urals. Apart from Vorstadt, the city had no other suburbs. Boundless steppes spread beyond the city walls. Academician Falk points out that in the city of Orenburg in 1770 there were 1533 philistine houses.
For trade purposes, a vast exchange yard was built a few versts from Orenburg.
This was the appearance of Orenburg during the peasant war of 1773-1775. On September 28, Reinsdorp convened a council of war, where it turned out that the city was able to field about 3,000 people, of which about 1,500 were soldiers. The fortress had about a hundred cannons. With the approach of the insurgent forces to Orenburg, the fortress began to be prepared for defense: the Cossacks of Vorstadt were transferred to the fortress, the moat was cleared of clay and sand, the ramparts were straightened, the fortress was surrounded by slingshots and manure was prepared for blocking the city gates. On the rampart of the fortress, already on October 2, there were 70 cannons. On October 4, the garrison of the fortress was replenished with a detachment of 626 people with 4 cannons, who arrived from the Yaitsky town at the call of Reinsdorp.
The fortress and the population of the city did not have sufficient food supplies. The time for its preparation was lost.
Such was the state of war in Orenburg at the moment Pugachev approached the walls of the city.
At about noon on October 5, 1773, the main forces of the rebel army appeared in sight of Orenburg and began to round the city from the northeastern side, reaching Vorstadt. The alarm sounded in the city.
Small groups of daring riders approached the city close, offering residents to obey Tsar Peter III and surrender the city without a fight. The Yaitsk Cossack Ivan Solodovnikov galloped up to the fortress shaft and, deftly bending down from the saddle, stuck it in. ground a peg with a pinched piece of paper. It was Pugachev's decree addressed to the Orenburg garrison. E. Pugachev called on the soldiers to lay down their arms and go over to the side of the uprising. Cannons thundered from the ramparts. The rebels bypassed the deserted, partially destroyed Vorstadt and, descending from the high bank into the valley of the Urals, set up a temporary camp near Lake Korovye stall, 5 versts from Orenburg.
Pugachev in Vorstadt near the Church of St. George. Reproduction of a painting by Petunin |
Smoke and flames rose over the city. It was the Vorstadt, set on fire by order of Reinsdorp. Only a Cossack church on the banks of the Urals survived the fire. During the assault on Orenburg, the rebels used it as a place for a battery: the cannons were installed on the porch and the bell tower. The rebels fired from the bell tower and rifles.
The approach of the rebels to Orenburg ended the first, initial stage of the peasant uprising and the next stage began - the period of the siege of Orenburg and the development of the local uprising into a popular war.
A detachment of 1,500 men set out from Orenburg under the command of Major Naumov. The Cossacks and soldiers of the detachment acted with great reluctance. According to Major Naumov, he saw "shyness and fear in his subordinates." After two hours of fruitless firefight, the detachment returned to the city.
On October 7, Reinsdorp called a council of war. It decided the question of what tactics to adhere to in the fight against the rebels: to act against them "defensively" or "offensively". Most of the members of the military council were in favor of "defensive" tactics. The Orenburg military authorities were afraid of the transfer of the garrison troops to the side of Pugachev. They believed that it was better to sit outside the walls of the fortress under the cover of the fortress artillery.
So the siege of Orenburg began, which lasted for six months, until the end of March 1774. The garrison of the fortress during its sorties could not defeat the peasant troops. The assaults of the rebels were repelled by the artillery of the city, but in open battle, success always remained on the side of the peasant army.
On the morning of October 12, troops under the command of Naumov left the city and engaged in a fierce battle with the rebels. Pugachev, having learned in advance about the upcoming sortie, chose a comfortable position. "The battle," a contemporary noted, "was stronger than before, and our artillery alone fired about five hundred shots, but the villains fired much more of their cannons, acted ... with greater audacity than before." The battle lasted for about four hours. It started to rain and snow. Fearing encirclement, Naumov's corps returned to the city, having suffered losses of 123 people.
On October 18, the insurgent army left its original camp on the Cossack meadows near the Cow Stable Lake east of Orenburg and moved to Mount Mayak, and then, due to the early cold weather, to the Berdskaya Sloboda, located seven miles from the city and numbering about two hundred households ...
On October 22, Pugachev with all his forces (about 2000 people) again approached Orenburg, set up batteries under the ridge and began an uninterrupted cannonade. Shells also flew from the city wall. This powerful artillery firefight lasted more than 6 hours. Resident of Orenburg Ivan Osipov recalled that on this day people "from cannonballs and extraordinary fear almost did not find a place in their homes." However, this very strong "aspiration to the city" did not lead to the capture of Orenburg, and the rebels retreated to Berda.
Reinsdorp's attempt to defeat the rebel army and occupy the Berdskaya settlement ended in complete failure. On January 13, 1774, the Orenburg garrison was completely defeated. The rebels utterly defeated the government troops, which retreated in panic under the cover of fortress artillery. The troops lost 13 guns, 281 killed and 123 wounded.
After this battle, the Orenburg garrison did not make a single serious attempt to defeat the rebel army. Rainsdorp limited himself to one passive defense. On the other hand, the fortifications of the city, significant artillery with a sufficient supply of military supplies, as well as the weak armament of the rebels, their lack of fortress artillery and the necessary military knowledge to conduct a siege of the fortress, prevented the seizure of Orenburg by the rebels.
Meanwhile, there were few provisions in the city. Pugachev knew this and decided to starve out the city.
Already in January, there was an acute shortage of food in Orenburg; there was also no fodder for the Cossack and artillery horses. Prices for food products have risen many times. The city was on the verge of surrender. Only the government units arrived in time to prevent the capture of Orenburg by peasant troops.
Such a long "standing" of the Main Insurgent Army near Orenburg was considered by some to be a big mistake, a gross miscalculation of Pugachev. Catherine II herself wrote in December 1773: “... One can be honored for the happiness that these canals have become attached for two whole months to Orenburg and further where they went”. Probably, Pugachev could not act otherwise, the very logic of the spontaneously developing events of the peasant war, the locality of the aspirations and actions of the rebels, who consisted mainly of residents of the Orenburg province, led to the desire to take Orenburg.
Expansion of the area of the uprising and the combat successes of the peasant army
While the siege of Orenburg was underway, the uprising was growing with extraordinary speed. In October 1773, the fortress along the river. Samara-Perevolotskaya, Novosergievskaya, Totskaya, Sorochinskaya - passed into the hands of the rebels. The serf peasantry, national minorities of the Orenburg Territory, and primarily the Bashkirs, join the uprising.
An example of the inclusion of the serf peasantry of the province in the Pugachev uprising is the speech of the inhabitants of the villages of Lyakhovo, Karamzine (Mikhailovka), Zhdanov, Putilovo, located to the north of Buzuluk. On the night of October 17, a mounted rebel detachment, consisting of Yaik Cossacks, Kalmyks and Chuvash-newly-baptized neighboring villages, galloped into the village of Lyakhovo, numbering 30 people. They announced that they had been sent from the armies by Tsar Peter Fedorovich to destroy the landowners' houses and give the peasants freedom. Having entered the landlord's courtyard, they "plundered everything and stole the cattle", and the peasants, according to the testimony of the local priest Peter Stepanov, "did not repair any resistance to preventing the plunder before that." The cornet of the rebels said to the peasants: "Mme, de men, do not work for the landowner at all and do not pay him any taxes."
Peasant attorneys selected at the meeting Leonty Travkin, Efrem Kolesnikov (Karpov) and Grigory Feklistov went to the camp to Pugachev and brought a special decree given from him, which was promulgated at the church in the village of Lyakhovo. The Karamzin priest Moiseyev read out this decree three times, in which the peasants were urged to "serve me, the great sovereign, to the drop of their blood," for which they would be rewarded with "a cross and a beard, river and land, grasses and seas, and a monetary salary, and grain provisions. , and lead, and gunpowder, and any liberty. " Leonty Travkin said that Pugachev ordered: "If someone kills the landowner to death and ruins his house, he will be given a salary - a hundred money, and whoever ruins ten noble houses, he will receive a thousand rubles and the rank of a general." The peasants received a combat mission from Pugachev to create local armed detachments and prevent government troops moving from Kazan into their region.
In November 1773, the Cossack and other population of the fortresses along the Samara line joined the uprising. The Buzuluk fortress became the center. Its inhabitants, having listened to the Pugachev decree, brought from Berda on November 30 by a detachment of retired soldier Ivan Zhilkin, happily went over to the side of "Tsar Peter Fedorovich." On the same day, another insurgent team of 50 Cossacks arrived in Buzuluk under the command of Ilya Fedorovich Arapov, a serf from near Buzuluk, who became a prominent figure in the peasant war. On the basis of Pugachev's manifestos and decrees, he liberated peasants from serfdom everywhere, dealt with landowners and their servants, and plundered noble estates. Taking the carts from local residents, "the rebels loaded them with 62 quarters of crackers, 164 kul of flour, 12 quarters of cereals, five poods of gunpowder and 2010 rubles of copper money." Sergeant Ivan Zverev, a participant in the events, showed this during the investigation.
The detachment of I. Arapov grew rapidly due to the influx of local peasants and Cossacks. On December 22, 1773, Arapov moved to Samara, and on December 25, he triumphantly entered it, peacefully greeted by "a great multitude of inhabitants" who came out with a cross, images, at the bell ringing. The residents of the Buguruslan settlement also joined the uprising, forming a detachment led by Gavrila Davydov, a former deputy of the Legislative Commission.
The noble government took measures to suppress the peasant uprising On October 14, 1773, Major General Kar was appointed head of the troops to suppress the uprising. On October 30, he arrived at the Kichuisky paramedic, a former fortification on the New Zakamskaya line, on the Orenburg-Kazan highway. Even before the arrival of the Kara-Kazan governor von Brandt sent a detachment of the Simbirsk commandant, Colonel Chernyshev, along the Samara line. From Siberia, military teams were moved from Tobolsk and from the Siberian line of fortifications. The coordinated actions of these detachments could decide the fate of the uprising. However, the rebels defeated these government troops.
Upon learning of the approach of Kara, the detachments of the rebels, under the leadership of Pugachev and Khlopushi, came out to meet and near the village of Yuzeeva (Belozersky District) inflicted a huge defeat on him. Kar retreated with significant losses.
On the morning of November 13, near Mount Mayak near Orenburg, a detachment of Colonel Chernyshev was captured, numbering up to 1100 Cossacks, 600-700 soldiers, 500 Kalmyks, 15 guns and a huge baggage train. Only a detachment of Colonel Korf, marching from the Verkhne-Ozernaya fortress (the modern village of Verkhneozernoe), consisting of 2500 people and 25 guns, managed to slip into Orenburg.
To prevent the offensive of government troops from Siberia, Pugachev sent Khlopusha up the Yaiku River in November and followed him himself. On November 23 and 26, peasant troops unsuccessfully attacked the Upper Ozernaya fortress. On November 29, they stormed the Ilyinsky fortress and captured the detachment of Major Zaev, who was marching to the aid of the besieged Orenburg. Major General Stanislavsky, moving after Zaev, retreated in fear to the Orsk fortress, where he remained with his detachment until the defeat of the uprising forces. On February 16, 1774, Khlopushi's detachment captures the Iletsk Defense (the modern city of Sol-Iletsk).
The defeat of the government troops had a tremendous impact on the expansion of the uprising.
Already in October, Bashkir rebel detachments appear near Ufa, and from mid-November the siege of Ufa begins. The insurgent center was located 20 kilometers from Ufa, in the village of Chesnokovka. The leaders of the rebel forces in Bashkiria were the 20-year-old Bashkir national hero Salavat Yulaev, the Yaik Cossack Chika-Zarubin, specially sent by Pugachev from Berd, and the retired soldier Beloborodov.
On November 18, its commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Wolf, escaped from the Buzuluk fortress. A detachment of peasants and Cossacks under the command of the rebel chieftain Arapov, a simple serf peasant, moved down Samara. On December 25, 1773, he was solemnly greeted by the inhabitants of Samara. In December, the residents of the Buguruslan settlement also joined the uprising, sending two deputies to Berdy to Pugachev. One of them - Gavrila Davydov - was received by Pugachev and appointed ataman of the Buguruslan settlement. Teams were organized everywhere, chieftains and chieftains were elected.
By the end of December, the entire western part of the modern Orenburg region and the adjacent part Samara region up to the Volga passed into the hands of the rebels. The cities went over to their side: Osa, Sarapul, Zainek. The retired artilleryman Ivan Beloborodov became the leader of the rebel detachments in the Middle Urals. Separate detachments of insurgents appeared near Yekaterinburg.
At the end of December 1773, the Yaik Cossack insurgents seized the Yaitsk Cossack town (Uralsk). The commandant of the town, Colonel Simonov, who had built a fortification inside the town, was under siege.
In January 1774, the rebels, led by the 20-year-old Bashkir national hero Salavat Yulaev, occupied the city of Krasnoufimsk and besieged Kungur, and the Chelyabinsk Cossacks, led by ataman Gryaznov, captured the Chelyabinsk fortress. The population of the Ural mining plants goes over to the side of the uprising.
Thus, at the end of 1773 and at the beginning of 1774, the vast land was ablaze in the flames of rebellion. The landowners fled in fear to central Russia. Kazan is empty. Whole carts were drawn to Moscow with the property and families of landowners. A member of the secret commission of inquiry, Lieutenant-Captain Mavrin, on assignment to Kazan, wrote to Catherine II that despair and fear were so great that if Pugachev had sent about 30 of his supporters, he could easily have taken over the city.
Berdy village
Cold weather set in early November. On November 5, the peasant army goes over to the Berdskaya Sloboda. The rebels settled in huts, dug-outs in the courtyards, in the vicinity of the settlement.
Berdskaya Sloboda becomes the center of the uprising, the main headquarters of the rebel army.
The significance of the settlement as the center of the uprising was well understood by the participants in the uprising. In their letters and official papers, they call it “the city of Berdy”. Contemporaries say: "They call the Berdskaya settlement Moscow, Kargala - Petersburg, and the Chernorechenskaya fortress - the province".
Peasants walked from all sides to the Berdskaya Sloboda: some - to see their peasant tsar, who was simply called "priest", and to receive a decree on "eternal liberty", others - to join the ranks of the peasant army. Chika-Zarubin, one of the main leaders of the uprising, later testified during interrogation: "A rare slave was taken into his crowd, for the most part they walked around every day in crowds."
This is how a multinational peasant army was formed.
The number of the peasant army in the middle of November 1773 reached 10,000 people, of which about half were Bashkirs. Later, in February-March 1774, the size of the peasant army increased to 20,000 people.
The entire army was divided into regiments, partly according to nationality, partly according to territorial and social characteristics. So, there was a regiment of Yaik Cossacks, a regiment of Iletsk Cossacks, a regiment of Orenburg Cossacks, a regiment of Kargaly Tatars, a regiment of factory peasants, etc.
Cavalry regiments were organized from the Cossacks and Bashkirs, who had horses, and the factory workers and peasants made up the infantry.
Each regiment stood in its own dugouts and had its own regimental banner. The regiments were divided into companies, hundreds and tens. The regimental commanders were chosen at the military circle or appointed by Pugachev. As a rule, all commanders were selected on a round-robin basis.
The commanding staff of Pugachev's army reached two hundred people, of whom 52 were Cossacks, 38 were serfs, 35 were factory workers. Among the leaders were 30 Bashkirs and 20 Tatars.
In addition to infantry and cavalry, there was artillery, numbering about 80 cannons, many of which were manufactured at the Ural factories. Shells were also made there.
In the regional museum of local lore, the insurgents' cannon is kept, which is a copper barrel attached to an iron-bound wooden machine - a gun carriage. Carriage wheels made of solid pieces of wood. On the barrel of the cannon, there is an image of the banner and the outline of the letter "P" - the initial letter of the name Peter. The cannon was probably cast in honor of the leader of the uprising in the Ural factories. She was sent to the museum from the St. Petersburg Artillery Museum in 1899, and there she was delivered from the Izhevsk Arms Factory
The armament of the army as a whole was weak.
The best armed were the Yaik and Orenburg Cossacks, who had their own weapons, as well as soldiers who went over with weapons to the side of the rebels. The rest were armed with “some with a spear, some with a pistol, some with an officer's sword; There were comparatively few guns: the Bashkirs were armed with arrows, and most of the infantry had bayonets stuck on sticks, some were armed with clubs, and the rest had no weapons at all and went to Orenburg with one whip, ”says one of the historians of the uprising.
Troops carried out patrol service, patrols and patrols were sent out. One of these patrols was on Mount Mayak, from where the whole of Orenburg was clearly visible.
The troops were trained in combat. AS Pushkin writes: "exercises (especially artillery exercises) took place almost every day."
For commanding the army and managing the occupied territory, E. Pugachev created a special apparatus - the Military Collegium.
Pugachev appointed the Yaik Cossacks Andrei Vitoshnov, Maxim Shigaev, Danil Skobochkin and the Iletsk Cossack Ivan Tvorogov as members of the Military Collegium. The secretary of the collegium was the Iletsk Cossack Maxim Gorshkov, and the Duma clerk (chief secretary) was the Yaik Cossack Ivan Pochitalin.
The military collegium dealt with various military, administrative, economic, and judicial issues. She sent orders to the atamans, gave decrees on behalf of Peter III) took care of food, military supplies, dealt with complaints from the population, worked out plans for military operations, etc.
The leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev, was accommodated in the Berd settlement in a peasant hut belonging to the Berdin Cossack Sitnikov, which in the 20s of the 19th century was known among the Berdin Cossacks under the name of the "Golden Chamber". Prominent participant in the uprising Timofey Myasnikov said during interrogation “This house was one of the best and was called the sovereign's palace, on whose porch there was always an indispensable guard of the best 25 Yaik Cossacks, called the Guards. Instead of wallpaper, his peace was filled with hype, ”that is, with golden paper. Old residents of the village of Berdy still remember the location of the“ golden chamber ”.
The closest associates of E. Pugachev in the first period of the uprising were the Yaik Cossacks Andrei Ovchinnikov, Chika-Zarubin, Maxim Shigaev, Perfilyev, Davilin, the centurion of the Orenburg Cossacks Timofei Padurov, the exiled Afanasy Sokolov-Khlopusha, the retired soldier Beloborodoye, the serf, the soldier Ilya Zhilkin Bashkirs Salavat Yulaev, Kinzya Arslanov, Kargaly Tatars Musa Aliev, Sadyk Seitov and others.
Pushkin in the village. Byrd
In the fall of 1833, Alexander Pushkin traveled to the distant Orenburg region to collect materials on the uprising of Yemelyan Pugachev and to get acquainted with the places of events of 1773-1775. On September 18 (old style) 1833 A.S. Pushkin arrived in Orenburg. On September 19, accompanied by V.I.Dal, he traveled to Berdy. In Berdy, A.S. Pushkin and V.I. Dal found a contemporary of the uprising, the old woman Buntova, who was from the Lower Lake Fortress. Buntova sang several songs about Pugachev to A.S. Pushkin, said that she remembered about the uprising. The traces of this conversation are several notes in the notebook of the great poet with notes: "In Berd from an old woman", "An old woman in Berd". Buntova and other Berdin old-timers showed the place where the "sovereign's palace" stood, that is, the hut where Pugachev lived. From the high cliff of the old bank of the Sakmara, they showed the peaks of the Grebeni mountains and told, as V.I.Dal reports in his memoirs about his trip to Berdy, the legend of a huge treasure allegedly buried by Pugachev in the Grebeni.
The trip to Berdy made a deep impression on Pushkin. Returning from a trip to his estate near Moscow Boldino, A.S. Pushkin, recalling a trip to Orenburg and. Uralsk, in a letter dated October 2, 1833 to his wife, wrote: “In the village of Berde, where Pugachev stayed for six months, I had une bonne fortune (great luck): I found a 75-year-old Cossack woman who remembers this time as you and I we remember 1830 ".
Records made in with. Berds, were used by A. S. Pushkin in the "History of Pugachev" and the story "The Captain's Daughter". "Rebellious Sloboda" is the village of Berdy from the era of the uprising. Descriptions of the "sovereign's palace" and the road along which the hero of the story, Ensign Grinev, went to the "rebellious settlement", are based on the stories of Berdin old-timers, in particular Buntova, and the personal impressions of A.S. Pushkin.
The peasants lead Grinev "to the hut, which stood at the corner of the crossroads." Indeed, the hut of the Cossack Sitnikov, where Pugachev lived, as already mentioned, stood at the corner of modern Leninskaya and Pugachev streets, on the very edge of the Sakmara bank. The Cossack Akulina Timofeevna Blinova also points to the same location of the sovereign's palace in her memoirs recorded in 1899. A. T. Blinova, being Buntova's neighbor, was present at the conversation between A. S. Pushkin and V. I. Dal and Buntova. She recalled: “The gentlemen were asked to show the house 'where Pugachev lived. Buntova took them to the show. This house stood on a large street, on the corner, on the red side. It was six windows. The yard offers a wonderful view of Sakmara, lake and forest. Sakmara came very close to the courtyards. "
It is very likely that A.S. Pushkin was shown not only the place where the hut of the Cossack Sitnikov stood, but that during A.S. Pushkin's visit to the village. Berdy, this hut was still standing, and A. Pushkin saw the "sovereign's palace". This is indicated, in addition to the memoirs of A. T. Blinova, and the message of the publisher of "Notes of the Fatherland" P. I. Svinin, who was in Orenburg in 1824. In one of the notes to his article "Painting of Orenburg and its environs" P. I. Svinin reports that in the village. Berds show hitherto a hut, the former palace of E. Pugachev. This hut, Buntova's stories and documentary materials ...
Suppression of the uprising
The government understood the danger of the Pugachev uprising. On November 28, the State Council was convened, and General-in-Chief Bibikov was appointed commander of the troops to fight Pugachev, instead of Kara, who was provided with extensive powers.
Strong military units were thrown into the Orenburg Territory: the corps of Major General Golitsyn, the detachment of General Mansurov, the detachment of General Larionov and the Siberian detachment of General Decalong.
Until that time, the government tried to hide from the people the events near Orenburg and in Bashkiria. Only on December 23, 1773 was the Pugachev manifesto promulgated. The news of the peasant uprising spread throughout Russia.
On December 29, 1773, after the stubborn resistance of the detachment of the ataman Ilya Arapov, Samara was occupied. Arapov retreated to the Buzuluk fortress.
On February 28, a detachment of Prince Golitsin moved from Buguruslan to the Samara line to join with Major General Mansurov.
The whole winter passed in the siege of Orenburg, and only in March, upon learning of the approach of Golitsyn's corps, Pugachev withdrew from Orenburg to meet the advancing troops.
On March 6, the advance detachment of Golitsin entered the village of Pronkino (on the territory of the present-day Sorochinsky district) and settled down for the night. Warned by the peasants, Pugachev with the atamans Rechkin and Arapov at night, during a strong storm and snowstorm, made a forced march and attacked the detachment. The rebels broke into the village, captured the cannons, but then were forced to retreat. Golitsyn, having withstood the attack of Pugachev. Under pressure from government troops, peasant detachments retreated up Samara, taking with them the population and supplies.
Pugachev returned to Berdy, transferring command of the retreating detachments to Ataman Ovchinnikov.
The decisive battle between the government troops and the peasant army took place on March 22, 1774 near the Tatishchevo fortress (the modern village of Tatishchevo). Pugachev concentrated here the main forces of the peasant army, about 9000 people. Instead of the burnt-out wooden walls, a rampart of snow and ice was erected, and cannons were installed. The battle lasted over 6 hours. The peasant troops held out with such steadfastness that Prince Golitsin, in his report to A. Bibikov, wrote:
"The matter was so important that I did not expect such insolence and orders in such unenlightened people in the military craft as these defeated rebels are."
The peasant army lost about 2,500 people killed (in one fortress 1,315 people were found killed) and about 3,300 people taken prisoner. Prominent commanders of the peasant army Ilya Arapov, soldier Zhilkin, Cossack Rechkin and others perished near Tatishcheva. All the insurgent artillery and the baggage train fell into the hands of the enemy. This was the first major defeat of the rebels.
The defeat of the rebels at Tatishcheva opened the road to Orenburg for the government troops. On March 23, Pugachev with a two-thousand-strong detachment went to the Perevolotskaya fortress in the steppe in order to break through the Samara line to Yaitsky town. Having stumbled upon a strong detachment of government troops, he was forced to turn back.
On March 24, the peasant army was defeated near Ufa. Its leader, Chika-Zarubin, fled to Tabinsk, but was treacherously captured and extradited.
Pugachev, pursued by the tsarist troops, with the remnants of his detachments, hastily retreated to Berda, and from there to the Seitovaya Sloboda and Sakmarsky town. Here, on April 1, 1774, in a fierce battle, the rebels were again defeated. The leader of the uprising E. Pugachev left with a small detachment through Tashla to Bashkiria.
In the battle near the Sakmara town, prominent leaders of the uprising were captured: Ivan Pochitalin, Andrei Vitoshnov, Maxim Gorshkov, Timofey Podurov, M. Shigaev and others.
On April 16, government troops entered the Yaitsk Cossack town. A detachment of Yaik and Iletsk Cossacks in the amount of 300 people under the command of atamans Ovchinnikov and Perfiliev broke through the Samara line and went to Bashkiria to join Pugachev.
The attempt of the Orenburg and Stavropol Kalmyks to break through to Bashkiria ended less happily - only a small part of them could go there. The rest went to the Zasamar steppes. On May 23, they were defeated by government forces. The leader of the Kalmyks Derbetov died of wounds.
The events of the beginning of April 1774 basically ended the Orenburg period of the peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev.
On May 20, 1774, the Pugachevites occupied the Trinity Fortress, and on May 21 it was approached by the Decalong detachment, in a hurry to catch up with the Pugachev detachment. Pugachev had an army of more than 11,000 people, but it was not trained, poorly armed, and therefore was defeated in the battle at the Trinity Fortress. Pugachev retreated towards Chelyabinsk. Here, at the Varlamova fortress, he was met by a detachment of Colonel Michelson and suffered a new defeat. From here, Pugachev's troops retreated to the Ural Mountains.
In May 1774 Afanasy Khlopusha, the commander of the "working people" regiment of the Ural factories, was executed in Orenburg. According to a contemporary, “his head was chopped off, and right there, close to the scaffold, his head was stuck on a spire on the gallows in the middle, which was removed this year in May and in the last days”.
Having replenished the army, Pugachev moved to Kazan and attacked it on July 11. The city was taken, with the exception of the fortress. During the storming of Kazan by the peasant troops in the prison, the Buguruslan rebel ataman Gavrila Davydov was stabbed to death by a guard officer, who was brought there after his capture. But on June 12, troops approached Kazan under the command of Colonel Mikhelson. In a battle that lasted more than two days, Pugachev was defeated again and lost about 7,000 people.
Although Pugachev's army was beaten, the uprising was not suppressed. When Pugachev, after his defeat in Kazan, crossed to the right bank of the Volga and sent out his manifestos to the peasants, urging them to fight against the nobles and officials, the peasants began to revolt without waiting for his arrival. This provided him with a movement forward. The army replenished and grew.
The workers and peasants of Central Russia were waiting for the arrival of Pugachev, but he did not go to Moscow, but headed south, along the right bank of the Volga. This march was victorious, Pugachev moved, almost without encountering resistance, and occupied settlements, cities one after another. Everywhere he was greeted with bread and salt, with banners and icons.
On August 1, Pugachev's detachments approached Penza and took it almost without resistance. On August 4, Petrovok was taken, followed by Saratov in the coming days. Entering the city, Pugachev everywhere released prisoners from prison, opened bread and salt shops and distributed goods to the people.
On August 17, Dubovka was taken, and on August 21, the Pugachevites approached Tsaritsyn and went on an assault. Tsaritsyn turned out to be the first city after Orenburg that Pugachev could not take. Upon learning that Michelson's detachment was approaching Tsaritsyn, he lifted the siege of the city, and went south, thinking to make his way to the Don and raise the entire population to an uprising.
A detachment of Colonel Mikhelson was operating near Ufa. He defeated Chika's detachment and headed for the factories. Pugachev occupied the Magnitnaya fortress and moved to Kizilskaya. But upon learning of the approach of the Siberian detachment under the command of the Decalong, Pugachev went into the mountains along the Verkhne-Uyskaya line, burning all the fortresses on his way.
On the night of August 24-25, near the Black Yar, the rebels were overtaken by Mikhelsov's detachment. The big last battle took place. In this battle, Pugachev's army was finally defeated, having lost more than 10,000 people killed and taken prisoner. Pugachev himself and several of his confidants managed to get to the left bank of the Volga. They intended to raise the peoples who roamed the Caspian steppes against the government, and arrived in a village located near the Bolshiye Uzeni River.
The government sent out manifestos everywhere, in which it promised 10,000 awards and forgiveness to the one who extradited Pugachev. Cossacks from the kulak elite, seeing that the uprising had turned into a campaign of the poor against the exploiters and oppressors, became more and more disillusioned with it. After the defeat of Pugachev, they conspired to save their corrupt skin. Pugachev's close associates - Chumakov, Tvorogov, Fedulov, Burnov, Zheleznov and others - attacked Pugachev en masse like cowardly dogs, tied him up and turned him over to the authorities. Pugachev was taken to the commandant of the Yaitsk town Simonov, and from there to Simbirsk.
November 4, 1774 in an iron cage as wild animal, Pugachev, accompanied by his wife Sophia and son Trofim, was taken to Moscow, where the investigation began. The commission of inquiry tried to present the case in such a way that the uprising was prepared on the initiative of hostile states, but the course of the case inexorably showed that it was caused by the unbearable oppression and exploitation to which the peoples of the region were subjected.
“The maxim on the punishment by death of the traitor, rebel and impostor Pugachev and his accomplices.
With the addition of the announcement to the forgiven criminals.
For this reason, the Assembly, finding a case in such circumstances, conforming to the unparalleled mercy of Her Imperial Majesty, knowing Her compassionate and philanthropic heart, and finally, arguing that law and duty require justice, and not revenge, nowhere according to the Christian law that is incompatible, they unanimously sentenced and determined , for all the atrocities committed, the rebel and impostor Emelka Pugachev, by virtue of the prescribed Divine and civil laws, to inflict the death penalty, namely: quartering, sticking his head on a stake, spreading body parts to four parts of the city and putting on wheels, and then on those same places to burn. His main accomplices, contributing to his atrocities: 1. Yaik Cossack Afanasy Perfiliev, as the main favorite and collaborator in all evil intentions, undertakings and deeds of the monster and impostor Pugachev, more than all the anger and betrayal of his worthy fierce execution, and whose deeds are for everyone hearts may lead that this villain, being in Petersburg at the very time when the monster and impostor showed up in front of Orenburg, voluntarily presented himself to the authorities with such a proposal, supposedly, being prompted by loyalty to the common good and tranquility, he wanted to persuade the main villainous accomplices, Yaik Cossacks to subjugate the legitimate authorities, and bring the villain together with them with guilt. According to this exact certificate and oath, he was sent to Orenburg; but the burnt conscience of this villain, under the cover of good intentions, craved malice: he arrived in the host of villains, introduced himself to the main rebel and impostor, who was then in Berd, and not only refrained from performing the service that he promised to perform and conjured, but, what-b to assure the impostor of loyalty, openly announced to him all his intentions, and uniting his treacherous conscience with the vile soul of the monster himself, remained from that time until the very end unshakable in zeal for the enemy of the fatherland, was the most important accomplice in his atrocious deeds, carried out all the most painful executions on those unfortunate people, whom a disastrous lot condemned to fall into the bloodthirsty hands of villains, and finally, when the villainous gathering was destroyed in the last under the Black Yar, and the most favorites of the monster Pugachev rushed to the Yaitsk steppe, and in search of salvation, broke into different gangs, then the Cossack Pustobaev exhorted his comrades their own to appear in the Yaitsk city with a confession, to which the others agreed; but this hated traitor said that he would rather be buried alive in a zeya than surrender to the hands of Her Imperial Majesty to certain authorities; however, he was caught by the exiled command; for which he himself is the traitor Perfiliev, dressed and blamed before the court; - quartered in Moscow.
To the Yaitsk Cossack Ivan Chika, who is also Zarubin, who called himself Count Chernyshev, the inherent favorite of the villain Pugachev, and who at the very beginning of the villain's rebellion, more than anyone else in imposture, set a seductive example to many others and, with extreme zeal, hid him from being caught when he was exiled for an impostor there was a detective team from the city, and then, when the villain and impostor Pugachev was discovered, he was one of his main collaborators, commanded a separate crowd, besieging the city of Ufa. For violation of the oath of allegiance to Her Imperial Majesty given before the almighty God for sticking to a rebel and impostor, for performing his vile deeds, for all ruin, abduction and murder - to cut off his head, and hammer her on a stake for a nationwide spectacle, and burn his corpse with scaffold purchased. And this execution should be carried out in Ufa, as in the main one of those places where all his godless deeds were carried out.
The Yaitsk Cossack Maxim Shigaev, the Orenburg Cossack Sotnik Podurov and the Orenburg non-serving Cossack Vasily Tornov, of whom the first Shigaev, because he heard about the impostor, voluntarily went to see him, or the inn to Stepan Abalyaev, located not far from the Yaitsky city, conferred in favor of discovering the villain and impostor Pugachev, he disclosed about him in the city, and if his meaning was attracted by the likelihood of ordinary people, then there he made many affection for the rebel and impostor; But sweat, when the villain had already clearly stolen the name of the late Tsar Peter the Third, and proceeded to the town of Yaitsk, he was with him one of his first collaborators. When taxing Orenburg, at any time when the main villain himself left there for the Yaitsky city, he left him as the head of his rebellious crowd. And in this hateful leadership he produced many anger Shigaev: he hanged the Leib-Guard of the cavalry regiment of the Reiter, sent to Orenburg from the Major-General and the Knight of Prince Golitsyn, with the news of his approach, only for the true loyalty to Her Imperial Majesty, his legitimate imperial majesty, saved by the said reiter ... Second Podurov, as if a real traitor, who not only surrendered himself to the villain and impostor, but also wrote many depraved letters among the people, exhorting the Yaik Cossacks faithful to Her Imperial Majesty to surrender to the villain and rebel, calling him and assuring others that he was the true Emperor , and finally wrote threatening letters to the Orenburg Governor, Lieutenant-General and Cavalier Reinsdorp, to the Orenburg Ataman Mogutov and to the loyal Sergeant-Major of the Yaitsk army, Martemyai Borodin, with which this traitor was convinced and confessed by letters. The third Tornov, as if a real villain and destroyer of human souls, ruined the Nagaybatsky fortress and some residence, and, moreover, once again adhered to the impostor, to hang all three of them in Moscow.
Yaitszhikh Cossacks, Vasily Plotnikov, Denis Karavaev, Grigory Zakladnov, Meshcheryatskiy Sotnik Kaznafer Usaev, and the Rzhevsk merchant Dolgopolov for the fact that these villainous accomplices, Plotnikov and Karavaev, at the very beginning of the villainous intent, then came to the plowed soldier and agreeing with him about the indignation of the Yaitsk Cossacks, they made the first disclosures to the people, and Karavaev said that he would have seen the Tsar's signs on the villain ... Thus leading ordinary people into the temptation, this Karavaev and Plotikov, according to the rumor about the impostor, were taken on guard , it was not announced. Zakladnov was like the first of the initial disclosures about the villain, and the very first before whom the villain dared to call himself the Emperor. Kaznafer Usaev was twice in the villainous crowd, he traveled to different places to indignate the Bashkirians and was with the villains Beloborodov and Chika, who produced various tyrannies. For the first time he was captured by loyal troops under the leadership of Colonel Mikhelson during the defeat of a villainous gang near the city of Ufa, and released with a ticket for the former residence; but not feeling the mercy shown to him, he again turned to the impostor, and brought the merchant Dolgopolov to him. The Rzhev merchant Dolgopolov, with various falsely composed fictions, led simple and frivolous people into a blind blinding, so that Kaznafer Usaev, having established himself more on his assurances, adhered a second time to the villain. To whip all five of them with a whip, put up signs and rip out their nostrils, send to hard labor, and from them Dolgopolov, in addition, to keep in chains.
Yaitsky Cossack Ivan Pochitalin, Iletsky Maxim Gorshkov and Yaitsky Ilya Ulyanov, for the fact that Pochitalin and Gorshkov were the producers of writing under the impostor, drew up and signed his nasty sheets, calling them Tsar's manifestos and decrees, through which they multiplied corruption in ordinary people. their non-participation and destruction. Ulyanov, as if he was always with them in villainous gangs, and who, as they did, murder, whip all three of them with a whip and, ripping out their nostrils, send them to hard labor.
Yaitsk Cossacks: Timofey Myasnikov, Mikhail Kozhevnikov, Pyotr Kochurov, Pyotr Tolkachev, Ivan Kharchev, Timofey Skachkov, Pyotr Gorshenin, Ponkrat Yagunov, arable soldier Stepan Abalyaev and exiled peasant Afanasy Chuikov villainous gangs, whip, and ripped out nostrils, send to the settlement.
The retired Guards furrier Mikhail Golev, the Saratov merchant Fyodor Kobyakov and the schismatic Pakhomiy, the first for sticking to the villain and the temptations from their disclosure, and the last for false testimony to whip, Golev and Pakhomiy in Moscow, and Protobyakov in Saratov, the merchant and Saraoptovsky Zh. for non-preservation in the right case due fidelity, whip.
Iletskago Kavak Ivan Tvarogov, yes Yaitskikh, Fyodor Chumakov, Vasily Konovalov, Ivan Burnov, Ivan Fedulov, Peter Pustobaev, Kozma Kochurov, Yakov Pochitalin and Semyon Sheludyakov, by virtue of Her Imperial Majesty's Imperial Majesty; release from any punishment; the first five people because, having heeded the voice of remorse, and feeling the severity of their iniquities, not only came to confess, but I tied the culprit of their destruction, Pugachev, betrayed myself and the villain and impostor of lawful power and justice; Pusotobaev, for the fact that he persuaded the detached gang from Pugachev himself to come with obedience, evenly and Kochurov, who even before that time had appeared with his guilt; and the last two for the signs of loyalty they showed, when they were captured in a villainous crowd and were sent from the villains to the Yaitsky city, but when they came there, although they were afraid to lag behind the crowd, they always announced evil circumstances and the approach of loyal troops to the fortress ; and then when the villainous crowd was destroyed near the Yaitsky town, they themselves came to the commander. And about this Highest Mercy of Her Imperial Majesty and pardon to make them a special announcement, through the member detached from the meeting, this Genvar 11 days, at a nationwide spectacle in front of the Palace of Facets, where to remove the shackles from them.
The death penalty for the villains in Moscow is to be carried out in a swamp, this is 10 days in Genvar. Why bring the villain Chiku, appointed for execution in the city of Ufa, and after the local execution of the same hour send him to execution in the place designated for him. And for both the publication of this maxim, and the predicted mercy for the forgiven, and about the proper preparations and outfits, send decrees from the Senate, where appropriate. It was concluded on the 9th day of January 1775 ”.
(Complete collection laws of the Russian Empire. The year is 1775.
January 10th. Law No. 14233, pp. 1-7)
The fists who betrayed Pugachev were pardoned. The verdict by Catherine II was approved. Condemned do not sit for mercy.
On January 10, 1775, in Moscow, the tsarist executioners executed the people's leader and his associates. Pugacheva and Perfiliev were to be quartered alive, but the executioner "made a mistake" and cut off their heads first, and then quartered them.
Ivan Zarubin-Chika was executed in Ufa. Salavat Yulaev and his father Yulai Aznalin were severely beaten with a whip in many villages of Bashkiria and sent to hard labor in Rogervik on the Baltic Sea. Mass repressions in the Urals and the Volga region continued until the summer of 1775. Ordinary participants in the uprising were sent to hard labor, assigned to the army, beaten with whips, batogs, and whips.
A cruel reprisal took place with ordinary participants in the uprising. A lot of prisoners were thrown into prison. In Orenburg at the beginning of April 1774, up to 4,000 people were kept. Prison, Gostiny Dvor - everything was overcrowded. The prisoners were even kept in "drinking houses". For the investigation, members of the secret commission of inquiry, captains Mavrin and Lunin, were sent to Orenburg. Especially brutal massacre was carried out on the right bank of the Volga. The entire leadership of the uprising - atamans, colonels, centurions - were executed by death, ordinary participants in the uprising were flogged and "cut off a few at one ear" and out of 300 people, by lot, "one was executed by death."
In order to intimidate the population, executions were carried out in public in public places, rafts with the hanged descended along the Volga. In all those places where active performances took place, "gallows", "verbs" and "wheels" were erected. They were also built within the modern Orenburg region in most of the settlements of that time.
Orenburg governor Reinsdorf, Colonel Mikhelson and other commanders for suppressing the popular uprising were rewarded with new ranks, villages with serfs and lands, as well as large sums of money.
Results of the uprising
The peasant war led by Yemelyan Pugachev ended in defeat for the rebels. However, this does not detract from the enormous progressive significance of the uprising. The peasant war of 1773-1775 dealt a serious blow to the feudal-serf system, it undermined its foundations.
In order to prevent a repetition of "Pugachevism", tsarism began to hastily take measures to strengthen the positions of the nobility both in the center and in the outskirts.
In the Orenburg Territory, the distribution of state land in the form of "all-merciful awards" to officers, officials, Cossack foremen who participated in the suppression of the peasant war has increased. In 1798, general land surveying began in the province. It secured to the landlords all of their lands, including those illegally seized. The government encouraged the noble-landlord colonization of the region, therefore, in the last quarter of the 18th century. the resettlement of landowners and their peasants increased, especially in the Buguruslan and Buzuluk districts. Over the last quarter of the 18th century. in the Orenburg province, 150 new noble estates were formed.
Catherine II, wanting to erase from memory the hated names associated with the Pugachev movement, changed the names of various places; so the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don, where Pugachev was born, was renamed Potemkin; Catherine II ordered to burn down the house where Pugachev was born. At the same time, a curiosity occurred. Since Pugachev's house had previously been sold and moved to another estate, he was ordered to be put in its original place and then, by virtue of the decree, burned. The Yaik River was named the Ural. The Yaitsky army of the Ural Cossack army, the Yaitsky town - the Uralsky, the Verkhne-Yaitskaya pier - the Verkhneuralsky, etc. The nominal decree of the Senate on this matter reads:
“... for the complete oblivion of this unfortunate incident that followed on Yaik, the Yaik River, along which both this army and the city had its name until now, due to the fact that this river flows from the Ural Mountains, should be renamed Ural, and therefore and the army should be called Uralsk, and henceforth not called Yaitsk, and henceforth, the Yaitsk city should be called Uralsk; what is published for information and execution ".
(Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire.
It was strictly forbidden to even mention the name of Pugachev, and documents began to call his uprising "the well-known popular confusion."
In an effort to subordinate the Cossacks to their interests, to turn them from the instigator of popular movements into a punitive force, tsarism, relying on the ataman-elders' elite, makes some concessions to the Cossack administration, but at the same time gradually reforms it in an army manner. The Cossack upper classes are given the right to own serfs, courtyards, officers and nobility are given.
The tsarist government promoted the spread of serfdom among the non-Russian peoples of the region. By the decree of February 22, 1784, the endorsement of the local nobility was fixed.
The Tatar and Bashkir princes and Murzas were allowed to use the "liberties and advantages" of the Russian nobility, including the right to own serfs, though only of the Muslim faith. The largest of the Muslim landowners, who owned thousands of serfs, were the Tevkelevs, the descendants and heirs of the famous translator and diplomat, later General A.I. Tevkelev.
However, fearing new popular uprisings, tsarism did not dare to completely enslave the non-Russian population of the region. The Bashkirs and Mishars were left in the position of the military service population. In 1798, cantonal administration was introduced in Bashkiria. In the 24 formed cantons, the administration was carried out in a military manner.
The peasant war showed the weakness of administrative control in the outskirts. Therefore, the government hastily began to reform it. In 1775, the provincial reform followed, according to which the disaggregation of the provinces was carried out and there were 50 instead of 20. All power in the provincial and uyezd institutions was in the hands of the local nobility.
To improve the supervision of the order in the region, a new reform was carried out in 1782. Instead of the province, two governorships were established: Simbirsk and Ufa, which, in turn, were divided into regions, the latter into districts, and the districts into volosts. The Ufa governorship consisted of two regions - Orenburg and Ufa. The Orenburg region included the following counties: Orenburg, Buzuluksky, Verkhneuralsky, Sergievsky and Troitsky. A number of fortresses were turned into the cities of Buguruslan, Orsk, Troitsk, Chelyabinsk, with the corresponding staff of officials and military teams. Samara and Stavropol, which had previously been part of the Orenburg province, went to the Simbirsk governorship, the Ural Cossack army with the Ural and Guriev - to the Astrakhan province.
Since 1769, Russia has been waging a difficult but very successful war with Turkey for the possession of the Black Sea region. However, in Russia itself it was very restless, at that time a rebellion began, which entered into under the name of the "Pugachev revolt". Many circumstances paved the way for such a riot, namely:
1. Increased discontent of the Volga peoples with national and religious oppression, as well as the arbitrariness of the tsarist authorities. All kinds of obstacles were put up for the traditional folk religion and in the activities of imams, mullahs, mosques and madrassas, and part of the indigenous population was imprudently subjected to violent Christianization. In the South Urals, on lands bought for a pittance from the Bashkirs, entrepreneurs built metallurgical plants, hired Bashkirs for support work for a pittance. Salt industries, river and lake banks, forest dachas and pastures were taken away from the indigenous population. Huge tracts of impenetrable forest were predatory cut down or burned to produce coal.
2. In the second half of the 18th century, serf oppression of the peasants intensified. After the death of Tsar Peter, a long period of "woman's rule" began in Russia, and the empresses distributed hundreds of thousands of state peasants to the landowners, including their numerous favorites. As a result, every second peasant in Great Russia became a serf. In an effort to increase the profitability of estates, the landowners increased the size of the corvee, their rights became unlimited. They could screw a person to death, buy, sell, exchange, send to the soldiers. In addition, a powerful moral factor of class injustice was superimposed on life. The fact is that on February 18, 1762, Emperor Peter III adopted a decree on the freedom of the nobility, which granted the ruling class the right to either serve the state or resign and leave for their estates. Since ancient times, the people, in its different classes, had a firm conviction that each class, to the best of its strength and abilities, serves the state in the name of its prosperity and the national good. Boyars and nobles serve in the army and institutions, peasants work on the land, in their estates and in noble estates, workers and artisans - in workshops, in factories, Cossacks - on the border. And here the whole class was given the right to idle around, to lie back on sofas for years, to get drunk, to be debauched and to eat free bread. This inactivity, uselessness, idleness and depraved life of the rich noblemen especially irritated and oppressed the working peasantry. The matter was aggravated by the fact that the retired noblemen began to spend most of their lives on their estates. Before, they spent most of their life and time in the service, and the estates were actually managed by the elders from their own local peasants. The nobles retired after 25 years of service, in their mature years, often sick and wounded, wiser by many years of service, knowledge and life experience. Now young and healthy people of both sexes literally languished and toiled from idleness, inventing new, often depraved, entertainments for themselves, which required more and more money. In impulses of unbridled greed, many landowners took the land from the peasants, forcing them to work in corvee all week. The peasants instinctively and intellectually understood that the ruling circles, freeing themselves from service and labor, were increasingly tightening the bondage of serfs and oppressing the laboring, but disenfranchised peasantry. Therefore, they tried to restore a just, in their opinion, past way of life, to make the presumptuous nobles serve the Fatherland.
3. There was also a great dissatisfaction of the mining workers with hard, backbreaking work and poor living conditions. Serfs were attributed to state factories. Their labor at the factory was counted as corvee work. These peasants had to receive funds for food from their subsidiary plots. The appointees were forced to work in factories up to 260 days a year, they had little time left to work in their farmsteads. Their farms became poorer and impoverished, and people lived in extreme poverty. In the 1940s, the "merchant" owners were also allowed to "export all ranks of people" to the Ural factories. Only the breeder Tverdyshev by the 60s of the 18th century acquired over 6 thousand peasants for his factories.
The serf breeders forced the slaves to work out the "lesson" not only for themselves, but also for the dead, sick, fugitive peasants, for the elderly and children. In a word, labor obligations increased many times over and people could not get out of life-long, heavy bondage. Along with the registered and serfs, workers, artisans and fugitive ("gatherings") people worked in the shops. For every fugitive soul hired, the owner paid 50 rubles to the treasury and owned it for life.
4. The Cossacks were also unhappy. Since ancient times, the Yaik Cossacks have been famous for their love of freedom, steadfastness in the old faith and in the traditions bequeathed by their ancestors. After the defeat of the Bulavin uprising, Peter I tried to limit the Cossack liberties on the Yaik, disperse the Old Believers and shave the beards of the Cossacks, and received a corresponding protest and opposition that lasted several decades, survived the emperor himself, and later gave rise to powerful uprisings. Since 1717, the Yaik atamans ceased to be elected, and they began to be appointed and in St. Petersburg there were continuous complaints and denunciations of the atamans appointed by the tsar. Verification commissions were appointed from St. Petersburg, which, with varying degrees of success, partly extinguished discontent, and partly, due to the corruption of the commissars themselves, exacerbated it. The confrontation between the state power and the Yaitsk army in 1717-1760 developed into a protracted conflict, during which the Yaik Cossacks dissociated themselves into "willing" chieftains and foremen and "dissenting" simple military Cossacks. The following case overflowed the cup of patience. Since 1752, the Yaik army, after a long struggle with the merchant clan of the Gurievs, took over the rich fisheries in the lower reaches of the Yaik. Ataman Borodin and the foremen used a profitable trade for their own enrichment. The Cossacks wrote complaints, but they were not given a go. In 1763, the Cossacks sent a complaint with the walkers. Ataman Borodin was dismissed from his post, but the walker - the military sergeant major Loginov was accused of slander and exiled to Tobolsk, and 40 Cossack signatories were punished with whips and expelled from Yaitsky town. But this did not humble the Cossacks, and they sent a new delegation to St. Petersburg, headed by the centurion Portnov. The delegates were arrested and sent under escort to Yaik. A new commission headed by General von Traubenberg also arrived there. This foreigner and bourbon began his activity by whipping seven elected respected Cossacks, shaving their beards and sending them under escort to Orenburg. This greatly angered the freedom-loving villagers. On January 12, the authoritative Cossacks Perfiliev and Shagaev gathered the Circle and a huge mass of Cossacks went to the house where the cruel general was located. Elders, women and a priest walked ahead with icons, they carried a petition, sang psalms and wanted to peacefully achieve a solution to the controversial, but important issues... But they were met by soldiers with guns and gunners with cannons. When the Cossack mass reached the square in front of the Voiskovaya hut, Baron von Traubenberg ordered to open fire from cannons and rifles. As a result of dagger fire, more than 100 people died, some of them fled, but most of the Cossacks, disdaining death, rushed to the cannons and killed and strangled the gunners with their bare hands. The guns were deployed and point-blank shot at the punitive soldiers. General Traubenberg was hacked with sabers, Captain Durnovo was beaten, the chieftain and foremen were hanged. A new chieftain, foremen and the Circle were immediately elected. But a detachment of punishers who arrived from Orenburg, led by General Freiman, abolished the new government, and then carried out the decision that had arrived from St. Petersburg on the case of the insurgent Cossacks. All participants were whipped, in addition, 16 Cossacks tore out their nostrils, burned out the “thief” brand on their faces and sent them to hard labor in Siberia, 38 Cossacks with their families were sent to Siberia, 25 were sent to the soldiers. The rest were imposed a huge contribution - 36,765 rubles. But the cruel reprisal did not humble the Yaik Cossacks, they only harbored their anger and anger and waited for the moment for a retaliatory strike.
5. Some historians do not deny the "Crimean-Turkish trace" in the Pugachev events, as indicated by some facts of Pugachev's biography. But Emelyan himself did not recognize the connection with the Turks and Crimeans, even under torture.
All this gave rise to acute discontent with the authorities, prompted to look for a way out in active protest and resistance. All that was needed was the instigators and leaders of the movement. The instigators appeared in the person of the Yaik Cossacks, and Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev became the leader of the powerful Cossack-peasant uprising.
Rice. 1. Emelyan Pugachev
Pugachev was born on the Don, in 1742 in the village of Zimoveyskaya, the same one where the rebellious chieftain S.T. Razin. His father came from simple Cossacks. Until the age of 17, Emelya lived in his father's family, doing housework, and after his retirement, he took his place in the regiment. At the age of 19 he married, and soon went with the regiment on a campaign in Poland and Prussia and participated in the Seven Years War. For quickness and liveliness of mind, he was appointed adjutant of the regiment commander I.F. Denisov. In 1768 he went to war with Turkey, for the difference in the capture of the fortress of Bender he received the rank of cornet. But a serious illness makes him leave the army in 1771, the report says: "... and his chest and legs rotted." Pugachev tries to retire due to illness, but is refused. In December 1771, he secretly flees to the Terek. Before the Terek ataman Pavel Tatarnikov, he appears as a voluntary settler and is assigned to the village of Ischorskaya, where he was soon elected as the village ataman. The Cossacks of the villages of Ischorskaya, Naurskaya and Golyugaevskaya decide to send him to St. Petersburg to the Military Collegium with a petition for an increase in salary and provisions. Having received 20 rubles of money and a stanitsa stamp, he leaves for an easy stanitsa (business trip). However, in St. Petersburg he was arrested and put in a guardhouse. But together with the guard soldier, he escapes from custody and comes to his native place. There he was again arrested and escorted to Cherkassk. But with the help of a colleague in the Seven Years War, he again flees and hides in Ukraine. With a group of local residents, he leaves for the Kuban to the Nekrasov Cossacks. In November 1772, he arrived in Yaitsky town and was personally convinced of what tension and anxiety the Yaik Cossacks lived in anticipation of reprisals for the murdered Tsarist punisher General von Traubenberg. In one of the conversations with the owner of the house, the Cossack Old Believer D.I. But upon a denunciation, Pugachev was arrested, beaten with batogs, shackled and sent to Simbirsk, then to Kazan. But he also runs from there and wanders across the Don, the Urals and in other parts. Downright a real Cossack Rambo or ninja. Long wanderings embittered him and taught him a lot. He witnessed with his own eyes the hard life of the oppressed people, and a thought arose in the violent Cossack head to help the powerless people find the desired freedom and live the whole world like a Cossack, widely, freely and in great abundance. On his next arrival in the Urals, he already appeared before the Cossacks as "Tsar Peter III Fedorovich", and under his name began to publish manifestos promising wide freedoms and material benefits to all who were dissatisfied. Written in an illiterate, but vivid, imaginative and accessible language, the Pugachev manifestos were, in the just expression of A.S. Pushkin, "an amazing example of folk eloquence." For many years, the legend about the miraculous salvation of Emperor Peter III and there were dozens of such impostors at that time, but Pugachev turned out to be the most outstanding and successful, walked through the endless expanses of Mother Russia. And the people supported the impostor. Of course, to his closest associates D. Karavaev, M. Shigaev, I. Zarubin, I. Ushakov, D. Lysov, I. Pochitalin, he admitted that he took the name of the tsar to influence ordinary people, it was easier to raise them to rebellion, and he himself is a simple Cossack. But the Yaik Cossacks badly needed an authoritative and skillful leader, under whose banner and leadership they would rise to fight the selfish and willful boyars, officials and cruel generals. In fact, not many people believed that Pugachev was Peter III, but many followed him, such was the thirst for rebellion. On September 17, 1773, about 60 Cossacks arrived at the farm of the Tolkachev brothers, located 100 versts from the Yaitsky town. Pugachev addressed them with a fiery speech and a "royal manifesto" written by Ivan Pochitalin. With this small detachment, Pugachev set off towards the Yaitsky town. On the way, dozens of common people pestered him: Russians and Tatars, Kalmyks and Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. The detachment reached the number of 200 people and approached the Yaitsky town. The leader of the insurgents sent a formidable decree on voluntary surrender to the capital of the troops, but was refused. Not having captured the town by assault, the rebels went up the Yaik, took the Gnilovsky outpost and convened the Cossack Army Circle. Andrey Ovchinnikov was elected as the military ataman, Dmitry Lysov as colonel, Andrey Vitoshnov's chieftain, and here they chose the centurions and cornet. Moving up the Yaik, the rebels occupied the outposts of Genvartsovsky, Rubezhny, Kirsanovsky, Irteksky without a fight. Iletsk town tried to resist, but ataman Ovchinnikov appeared there with a manifesto and a garrison of 300 people with 12 cannons stopped resistance and met "Tsar Peter" with bread and salt. Dissatisfied crowds joined the insurgents, and, as Alexander Pushkin would later say, "a Russian revolt began, senseless and merciless."
Rice. 2. The surrender of the fortress to Pugachev
Orenburg governor Reinsdorp ordered Brigadier Bilov with a detachment of 400 men with 6 cannons to move towards the rebels to the rescue of Yaitsky town. However, a large detachment of rebels approached the Rassypnaya fortress and on September 24 the garrison surrendered without a fight. On September 27, the Pugachevites approached the Tatishchevskaya fortress. A large fortification on the way to Orenburg had a garrison of up to 1000 soldiers with 13 guns. In addition, a detachment of Brigadier Bilov was in the fortress. The besieged repulsed the first attack. As part of Bilov's detachment, 150 Orenburg Cossacks of centurion Timofei Padurov fought, who were sent to intercept the rebels moving around the fortress. To the surprise of the Tatishchevskaya garrison, the detachment of T. Padurov openly went over to the side of Pugachev. This undermined the strength of the defenders. The rebels set fire to wooden walls, rushed to the attack and broke into the fortress. The soldiers almost did not resist, the Cossacks went over to the side of the impostor. The officers were brutally dealt with: Bilov's head was cut off, the skin of the commandant, Colonel Elagin, was flayed, the body of the obese officer was used to treat wounds, fat was cut off and wounds were smeared. Elagin's wife was hacked, his beautiful daughter Pugachev took him as a concubine, and later, having amused himself following the example of Stenka Razin, he killed along with his seven-year-old brother.
Unlike all other Orenburg Cossacks, near the Tatishchevskaya fortress there was almost the only case of a voluntary transition of 150 Orenburg Cossacks to the side of the rebels. What made the centurion T. Padurov change his oath, surrender to the thieves' Cossacks, serve the impostor and ultimately end his life on the gallows? Sotnik Timofey Padurov comes from a wealthy Cossack family. He had a large allotment of land and a farm in the upper reaches of the Sakmara River. In 1766 he was elected to the Commission for the preparation of a new Code (code of laws) and for several years he lived in St. Petersburg and moved in court circles. After the dissolution of the commission, he was appointed ataman of the Iset Cossacks. In this position, he did not get along with the commandant of the Chelyabinsk fortress, Lieutenant Colonel Lazarev, and, starting in 1770, they bombarded Governor Reinsdorp with mutual denunciations and complaints. Failing to achieve the truth, the centurion left Chelyaba for Orenburg in the spring of 1772 for linear service, where he stayed with the detachment until September 1773. At the most crucial moment of the battle for the Tatishchevskaya fortress, he and a detachment went over to the side of the rebels, thereby helping to take the fortress and deal with its defenders. Apparently, Padurov did not forget his previous grievances, he was disgusted with the foreign German queen, her favorites and the magnificent surroundings that he observed in St. Petersburg. He truly believed in the high mission of Pugachev, with his help he wanted to overthrow the hated queen. Note that the tsarist aspirations of the Cossacks, their attempts to put their own, the Cossack tsar on the throne, were repeatedly repeated in Russian history of the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, since the end of the reign of the Rurik dynasty and the beginning of the accession of the new clan of the Romanovs, "tsars and princes" have been constantly nominated from the Cossack environment, aspirants to the Moscow crown. Emelyan himself played the role of the king well, forcing all his comrades-in-arms, as well as captured imperial officers and nobles, to play along with him, swear allegiance, kiss his hand.
Those who disagree were immediately severely punished - executed, hanged, tortured. These facts confirm the version of historians about the stubborn struggle of the Cossacks for their Cossack-Russian-Horde dynasty. The arrival of the intelligent, active and authoritative Cossack T. Padurov to the Pugachev camp turned out to be a great success. After all, this centurion knew court life well, he could tell in living colors common people about the life and morals of the queen, to discredit her depraved, lustful and thieving environment, to give all the legends and versions of the royal origin of Pugachev visible truthfulness and real colors. Pugachev highly appreciated Padurov, promoted him to colonel, appointed him to the "imperial person" and to act as Secretary of State. Together with the former corporal Beloborodov and the cornet of the Etkul stanitsa Shundeev, he carried out staff work and drew up "royal manifestos and decrees." But not only. With a small detachment of Cossacks, he rode out to meet the punitive detachment of Colonel Chernyshov, lost in the steppe. Having shown him his Golden Deputy Badge, he gained confidence in the colonel and led his detachment to the very center of the rebel camp. The surrounded soldiers and Cossacks threw their guns and surrendered, 30 officers were hanged. A large detachment of Major General V.A. Kara, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief, had more than 1,500 soldiers in total with 5 guns. The detachment had a hundred mounted Bashkirs of the batyr Salavat Yulaev. The Pugachevites surrounded a detachment of government troops near the village of Yuzeevka. At the decisive moment of the battle, the Bashkirs went over to the side of the rebels, which decided the outcome of the battle. Some of the soldiers joined the ranks of the rebels, some were killed. Pugachev granted Yulaev the rank of colonel, from that moment the Bashkirs took an active part in the uprising. To attract them, Pugachev threw populist slogans into the national masses: about the expulsion of Russians from Bashkiria, about the destruction of all fortresses and factories, about the transfer of all lands into the hands of the Bashkir people. These were false promises cut off from life, for it is impossible to reverse the movement of progress, but they fell in love with the indigenous population. The approach of new Cossack, Bashkir and workers' detachments near Orenburg strengthened Pugachev's army. During the six-month siege of Orenburg, the leaders of the uprising Special attention devoted to training the troops. As an experienced combat officer, the tireless leader trained his militia in military affairs. Pugachev's army, like the regular one, was divided into regiments, companies and hundreds. Three types of troops were formed: infantry, artillery and cavalry. True, only the Cossacks had good weapons, common people, Bashkirs and peasants were armed with anything. Near Orenburg, the insurgent army grew to 30 thousand people with 100 cannons and 600 gunners. At the same time, Pugachev repaired the trial and reprisals against the prisoners and shed rivers of blood.
Rice. 3. Pugachev's court
But all attacks on the capture of Orenburg were repulsed with heavy losses for the besiegers. Orenburg at that time was a first-class fortress with 10 bastions. In the ranks of the defenders there were 3,000 well-trained soldiers and Cossacks of the Separate Orenburg Corps, 70 cannons fired from the walls. The defeated General Kar fled to Moscow and caused great panic there. Anxiety seized St. Petersburg as well. Catherine demanded an early peace with the Turks, appointed the energetic and talented General A.I. Bibikov, and instituted a reward of 10 thousand rubles for the head of Pugachev. But the far-sighted and intelligent General Bibikov said to the tsarina: "It is not Pugachev that is important, the general indignation is important ...". At the end of 1773, the rebels approached Ufa, but all attempts to take the impregnable fortress were successfully repulsed. Colonel Ivan Gryaznov was sent to the Isetskaya province to capture Chelyabinsk. On the way, he captured fortresses, outposts and villages, the Cossacks and soldiers of the Sterlitamak pier, the Tabyn town, the Epiphany plant, the villages of Kundravinskaya, Koelskaya, Verkhneuvelskaya, Chebarkulskaya and other settlements joined him. The detachment of the Pugachev colonel grew to 6 thousand people. The rebels moved to the Chelyabinsk fortress. The governor of the Isetskaya province A.P. Verevkin took decisive measures to strengthen the fortress. In December 1773, he ordered 1300 "temporary Cossacks" to be assembled in the district, and the garrison of Chelyaba grew to 2000 people with 18 guns. But many of its defenders sympathized with the rebels, and on January 5, 1774, an uprising broke out in the fortress. It was headed by the ataman of the Chelyabinsk Cossacks Ivan Urzhumtsev and the cornet Naum Nevzorov. The Cossacks, under the leadership of Nevzorov, seized the cannons that were standing near the voivodship house, and opened fire from them on the soldiers of the garrison. The Cossacks broke into the governor's house and inflicted a cruel reprisal on him, beating him half to death. But carried away by the reprisal against the hated officers, the rebels left the guns unattended. Second lieutenant Pushkarev with the Tobolsk company and the gunners fought them off and opened fire on the rebels. In the battle, the ataman Urzhumtsev was killed, and Nevzorov with the Cossacks left the city. On January 8, Ivan Gryaznov approached the fortress with troops and stormed it twice, but the garrison bravely and skillfully held the defense. The attackers suffered heavy losses from the fortress artillery. Reinforcements from Seconds-Major Fadeev and part of the Siberian Corps of General Decolong broke through to the besieged. Gryaznov lifted the siege and went to Chebarkul, but having received reinforcements, he again occupied the village of Pershino near Chelyabinsk. On February 1, in the Pershino area, a battle of the Decolong detachment with the rebels took place. Unable to achieve success, the government troops retreated to the fortress, and on February 8 they left it and retreated to Shadrinsk. The uprising spread, a huge territory was engulfed in an all-consuming fire of fratricidal war. But many fortresses stubbornly refused to surrender. The garrison of the Yaitsk fortress, not agreeing to any promises from the Pugachevites, continued to resist. The rebel commanders decided: if the fortress is taken, not only the officers, but also their families will be hanged. The places where this or that person will hang were outlined. The wife and five-year-old son of Captain Krylov, the future fabulist Ivan Krylov, appeared there. As in any civil war, the mutual hatred was so great that on both sides, everyone who could wear took part in the battles. The opposing troops included not only fellow countrymen-neighbors, but also close relatives. Father went to son, brother to brother. Old residents of Yaitsky town recounted a typical scene. From the rampart of the fortress, the younger brother shouted to his elder brother, who was approaching him with a crowd of rebels: "Dear brother, do not come near! I will kill you." And the brother from the stairs answered him: "I will give you, I will kill you! Wait, I will climb on the shaft, I will kick your forelock, henceforth you will not frighten your older brother." And the younger brother fired at him from the squeak and the older brother rolled into the ditch. The surname of the brothers, the Gorbunovs, has also been preserved. A terrible confusion reigned in the rebellious territory. Gangs of robbers-rams became more active. On a large scale, they practiced the hijacking of people from the border zone into captivity to the nomads. The commanders of the government troops, who were trying to extinguish the Pugachev uprising by all means, were often forced to get involved in battles with these predators along with the rebels. The commander of one of such detachments, Lieutenant G.R. Derzhavin, the future poet, having learned that a gang of nomads was rampaging nearby, raised up to six hundred peasants, many of whom sympathized with Pugachev, and with them and a team of 25 hussars attacked a large detachment of Kyrgyz-Kaisaks and freed up to eight hundred Russian prisoners. However, the freed captives announced to the lieutenant that they also sympathize with Pugachev.
The protracted siege of Orenburg and Yaitsky town allowed the tsarist governors to pull up large forces of the regular army and noble militias of Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Sviyazhsk to the city. On March 22, the rebels were severely defeated by government forces at the Tatishchevskaya fortress. The defeat had a depressing effect on many of them. The cornet Borodin tried to seize Pugachev and hand him over to the authorities, but unsuccessfully. Pugachev's colonel Mussa Aliyev captured and betrayed the prominent rebel to Khlopusha. On April 1, when leaving the Sakmarsky town to the Yaitsky town, the thousands of Pugachev's army was attacked and defeated by the troops of General Golitsyn. Prominent leaders were captured: Timofey Myasnikov, Timofey Padurov, clerks Maxim Gorshkov and Andrei Tolkachev, Duma clerk Ivan Pochitalin, chief judge Andrei Vitoshnov, treasurer Maxim Shigaev. Simultaneously with the defeat of the main forces of the rebels near Orenburg, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhelson with his hussars and carabinieri carried out a complete defeat of the rebels near Ufa. In April 1774, the Commander-in-Chief of the tsarist troops, General Bibikov, was poisoned in Bugulma by a captive Polish confederate. The new Commander-in-Chief, Prince F.F. Shcherbatov concentrated large military forces and tried to attract the indigenous population to fight the rebels. The rebels suffered more and more defeats from the regular army.
After these defeats, Pugachev decided to move to Bashkiria and from that moment began the most successful period of his war with the tsarist government. One by one, he occupied the factories, replenishing his army with workers, weapons and ammunition. After the assault and destruction of the Magnitnaya fortress (now Magnitogorsk), he gathered a meeting of the Bashkir elders there, promised to return them lands and lands, destroy the fortifications of the Orenburg line, mines and factories, and expel all Russians. Seeing the destroyed fortress and the surrounding mines, the Bashkir elders met with great joy the promises and promises of the "hope-sovereign" began to help him with bread and salt, fodder and provisions, people and horses. Pugachev gathered up to 11 thousand rebel fighters, with whom he moved along the Orenburg line, occupied, destroyed and burned fortresses. On May 20, they stormed the most powerful Trinity Fortress. But on May 21, the troops of the Siberian corps of General Decolong appeared in front of the fortress. The rebels attacked them with all their might, but could not withstand the powerful onslaught of the brave and loyal soldiers, wavered and fled, losing up to 4 thousand killed, 9 guns and the entire baggage train.
Rice. 4. The battle at the Trinity Fortress
With the remnants of the army, Pugachev plundered the Nizhneuvelskoye, Kichiginskoye and Koelskoye fortifications, through Varlamovo and Kundrava went to the Zlatoust plant. However, near the Kundravs, the rebels had a counter battle with a detachment of I.I. Michelson and suffered a new defeat. The Pugachevites broke away from Mikhelson's detachment, which also suffered heavy losses and abandoned pursuit, plundered the Miass, Zlatoust and Satka factories and united with S. Yulaev's detachment. A young poet-horseman with a detachment of about 3,000 people actively acted in the mining and industrial zone South Urals... He managed to capture several mining plants, Simsky, Yuryuzansky, Ust-Katavsky and others, destroyed and burned them. In total, during the uprising, 69 factories in the Urals were partially and completely destroyed, 43 factories did not participate in the insurrectionary movement at all, the rest created self-defense units and defended their enterprises, or bought off the insurgents. Therefore, in the 70s of the 18th century, industrial production throughout the Urals declined sharply. In June 1774, the detachments of Pugachev and S. Yulaev united and laid siege to the Osa fortress. After a hard battle, the fortress surrendered, and the road to Kazan was opened for Pugachev, his army was quickly replenished with volunteers. With 20 thousand rebels, he attacked the city with four sides... On July 12, the rebels broke into the city, but the Kremlin held out. The tireless, energetic and skillful Michelson approached the city and a field battle unfolded near the city. The defeated Pugachevites, numbering about 400 people, crossed over to the right bank of the Volga.
Rice. 5. Pugachev's court in Kazan
With the arrival of Pugachev in the Volga region, the third and last stage of his struggle began. Huge masses of peasants and peoples of the Volga region stirred up and rose to fight for imaginary and real freedom. The peasants, having received Pugachev's manifesto, killed the landowners, hanged the clerks, burned the manor estates. The Pugachevsky detachment turned south, to the Don. The Volga cities surrendered to Pugachev without a fight, Alatyr, Saransk, Penza, Petrovsk, Saratov fell ... The offensive went on rapidly. They took cities and villages, repaired the court and reprisals against the gentlemen, freed the convicts, confiscated the property of the nobles, distributed bread to the hungry, took away weapons and ammunition, made up volunteers for the Cossacks and left, leaving behind flames and ashes. On August 21, 1774, the rebels approached Tsaritsyn, the indefatigable Mikhelson followed on his heels. The assault on the fortified city failed. On August 24, Mikhelson overtook Pugachev at the Black Yar. The battle ended in complete defeat, 2 thousand rebels were killed, 6 thousand were taken prisoner. With a detachment of two hundred rebels, the leader rode off to the Trans-Volga steppes. But the days of the rebellious chieftain were numbered. The active and talented General Pyotr Panin was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops operating against the rebels, and in the southern sector all forces were subdued by A.V. Suvorov. And what is very important, Pugachev was not supported by Don. This circumstance should be specially mentioned. The Don was ruled by a Council of Elders of 15-20 people and a chieftain. The circle met annually on January 1 and held elections for all elders, except for the chieftain. Tsar Peter I in 1718 introduced the appointment of chieftains (most often for life). This strengthened the central power in the Cossack regions, but at the same time led to the abuse of this power. Under Anna Ioannovna, the glorious Cossack Danila Efremov was appointed the Don chieftain, after a while he was appointed a military chieftain for life. But the power spoiled him, and under him the uncontrolled domination of power and money began. In 1755, for many merits of the ataman, he was awarded a major general, and in 1759, for merits in the Seven Years' War, he was also a privy councilor with the presence of the empress, and his son Stepan Efremov was appointed as the chief ataman on the Don. Thus, by the highest order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the power on the Don was transformed into hereditary and uncontrolled. From that time on, the ataman family crossed all moral boundaries in money-grubbing, and in revenge an avalanche of complaints fell upon them. Since 1764, on complaints from the Cossacks, Catherine demanded from Ataman Efremov a report on income, land and other possessions, his crafts and foremen. The report did not satisfy her and, on her instructions, the commission on the economic situation on the Don worked. But the commission did not work shakily, not shakily. In 1766, land surveying was carried out and the illegally occupied yurts were taken away. In 1772, the commission finally gave a conclusion on the abuses of the ataman Stepan Efremov, he was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. This matter, on the eve of the Pugachev revolt, took a political turn, especially since the ataman Stepan Efremov had personal services to the empress. In 1762, being at the head of the light village (delegation) in St. Petersburg, he took part in the coup that elevated Catherine to the throne and was awarded a personalized weapon for this. The arrest and investigation in the case of Ataman Efremov defused the situation on the Don and the Don Cossacks were practically not involved in the Pugachev revolt. Moreover, the Don regiments took an active part in suppressing the rebellion, capturing Pugachev and pacifying the rebellious regions over the next few years. If the empress had not condemned the thieving chieftain, Pugachev, no doubt, would have found support in the Don and the scope of the Pugachev rebellion would have been completely different.
The hopelessness of the further continuation of the rebellion was also understood by prominent associates of Pugachev. His comrades-in-arms, the Cossacks Tvorogov, Chumakov, Zheleznov, Feduliev and Burnov, seized and tied Pugachev on September 12. On September 15, he was taken to Yaitsky town, at the same time Lieutenant-General A.V. Suvorov. The future generalissimo, during interrogation, marveled at the sound reasoning and military talents of the "villain". In a special cell, under a large escort, Suvorov himself escorted the robber to Moscow.
Rice. 6 Pugachev in a cage
On January 9, 1775, the court sentenced Pugachev to quartering, the empress replaced him with execution by beheading. On January 10, on Bolotnaya Square, Pugachev ascended the scaffold, bowed to four sides, quietly said: "Forgive me, Orthodox people" and laid his troubled head on the chopping block, which the ax instantly cut off. Here, four of his closest associates were executed by hanging: Perfiliev, Shigaev, Padurov and Tornov.
Rice. 7 Execution of Pugachev
Yet the uprising was not meaningless, as the great poet said. The ruling circles were able to convince themselves of the strength and fury of the people's anger and made serious concessions and indulgences. The breeders were instructed to "double the payments for the work and not force the work in excess of the established norms." Religious persecutions were stopped in the ethnic regions, they were allowed to build mosques and taxes were stopped from them. But the vindictive Empress Catherine II, noting the loyalty of the Orenburg Cossacks, was indignant at the Yaiks. The empress wanted to abolish the Yaik army altogether, but then, at Potemkin's request, forgave it. To consign the rebellion to complete oblivion, the army was renamed into Ural, the Yaik River into the Ural, the Yaitskaya fortress into Uralsk, etc. Catherine II abolished the military circle and elective administration. The choice of chieftains and foremen finally passed to the government. They took away all the guns from the troops and forbade them to have them in the future. The ban was lifted only 140 years later with the outbreak of world war. However, the Yaitsky army was still lucky. The Volga Cossacks, also involved in the riot, were resettled to the North Caucasus, and the Zaporozhye Sich was completely eliminated. After the riot for at least ten years, the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks were armed only with melee weapons, squeaked and received ammunition only when there was a threat of a clash. The victors' revenge was no less terrible than the bloody exploits of the Pugachevites. Punitive detachments raged in the Volga region and the Urals. Thousands of rebels: Cossacks, peasants, Russians, Bashkirs, Tatars, Chuvash were executed without any trial, sometimes just at the whim of the punishers. In Pushkin's papers on the history of the Pugachev revolt, there is a note that Lieutenant Derzhavin ordered the hanging of two rebels "out of poetic curiosity." At the same time, the Cossacks who remained loyal to the empress were generously rewarded.
Thus, in the 17th-18th centuries, the type of the Cossack was finally formed - a universal warrior, equally capable of participating in sea and river raids, fighting on land both on horseback and on foot, perfectly knowledgeable in artillery, fortification, siege, mine and subversion. ... But the main type of hostilities used to be sea and river raids. The Cossacks became predominantly horsemen later under Peter I, after the ban on going to sea in 1695. In essence, the Cossacks are a caste of warriors, Kshatriyas (in India - a caste of warriors and kings), who defended the Orthodox faith and the Russian land for many centuries. Rus became the feats of the Cossacks powerful empire: Ermak presented Ivan the Terrible with the Siberian Khanate. Siberian and Far Eastern lands along the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur rivers, also Chukotka, Kamchatka, Central Asia, the Caucasus were annexed largely thanks to the military valor of the Cossacks. Ukraine was reunited with Russia by the Cossack ataman (hetman) Bohdan Khmelnitsky. But the Cossacks often opposed the central government (their role in the Russian Troubles, in the uprisings of Razin, Bulavin and Pugachev is remarkable). Many and stubbornly Dnieper Cossacks rebelled in the Commonwealth. To a large extent, this was due to the fact that the ancestors of the Cossacks were ideologically brought up in the Horde on the laws of the Yasa of Genghis Khan, according to which only Chingizid could be a real king, i.e. descendant of Genghis Khan. All other rulers, including Rurikovich, Gediminovich, Piast, Jagiellon, Romanov and others, were not legitimate enough in their eyes, were “not real kings”, and the Cossacks were morally and physically allowed to participate in their overthrow, riots and other anti-government activities. And in the process of the collapse of the Horde, when in the course of strife and the struggle for power hundreds of Chingizids were destroyed, including Cossack sabers, the Chingizids also lost their Cossack piety. One should not discount the simple desire to "show", take advantage of the weakness of the authorities and take legitimate and rich trophies during the troubles. The papal ambassador to Sich, Father Pearling, who worked hard and successfully to direct the warlike fervor of the Cossacks to the lands of the heretics Muscovites and Ottomans, wrote about this in his memoirs: “The Cossacks wrote their history with a saber, and not on the pages of ancient books, but on the battlefield left its bloody trail of this feather. It was customary for the Cossacks to deliver thrones to all sorts of applicants. In Moldova and Wallachia, they periodically resorted to their help. For the formidable freemen of the Dnieper and Don, it was completely indifferent whether the real or imaginary rights belonged to the hero of the minute. For them, one thing was important - that they had good prey. Was it possible to compare the pitiful Danubian principalities with the boundless plains of the Russian land, full of fabulous riches? "
However, since late XVIII century and before October revolution The Cossacks unconditionally and diligently performed the role of defenders of Russian statehood and the support of the tsarist power, having even received the nickname "tsarist satraps" from the revolutionaries. By some miracle, the alien queen-German woman and her outstanding nobles, by a combination of reasonable reforms and punitive actions, managed to drive into the violent Cossack head the persistent idea that Catherine II and her descendants are "real" tsars, and Russia is a real empire, in some places "cooler" than the Horde. This metamorphosis in the minds of the Cossacks, which took place at the end of the 18th century, has in fact been little studied and studied by Cossack historians and writers. But there is an indisputable fact: from the end of the 18th century to the October Revolution, the Cossack riots vanished as if by hand, and the bloodiest, longest and most famous riot in the history of Russia - the "Cossack revolt", was drowned.
Materials used:
Mamonov V.F. and other History of the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, 1992.
Shibanov N.S. Orenburg Cossacks of the 18th-19th centuries. Chelyabinsk, 2003.
A.A. Gordeev History of the Cossacks.
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Pugachev's peasant war can be briefly described as a massive, Russian empire from 1773 to 1775. Riots took place in vast territories, including the Urals, the Volga region, Bashkiria and the Orenburg region.
The leader of the uprising was Emelyan Pugachev - Don, who declared himself emperor. The reasons for the uprising were the discontent of the Yaik Cossacks associated with the loss of liberties, unrest among indigenous peoples such as the Bashkirs and Tatars, the tense situation in the Ural factories and the extremely difficult situation of the serfs.
The uprising began on September 17, 1773, when Pugachev, on behalf of the dead Emperor Peter III, announced his first decree to the Yaitsky army and, together with a detachment of 80 people, advanced to the Yaitsky town. On the way, more and more supporters join him. It is not possible to take the Yaitsky town due to the lack of artillery, and Pugachev decides to move further along the river Yaik.
Iletsk town is greeted as a legitimate sovereign. His army is replenished with garrison Cossacks and city artillery cannons. The rebel troops continue to move, occupying, with or without battle, all fortresses in their path. Soon, Pugachev's army, which by that time had reached an impressive size, approached Orenburg and on October 5 began the siege of the city.
The punitive corps of Major General Kara, sent to suppress the riot, is defeated and hastily retreat. Inspired by their successes, the rebels occupy more and more settlements, their forces are growing rapidly. However, they still fail to take Orenburg. The next military expedition led by Bibikov forces the rebels to lift the siege from the city. The rebels gather the main forces in the Tatishchevskaya fortress. As a result of the battle, which took place on March 22, 1774, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat.
Pugachev himself fled to the Urals, where, having again collected a significant army, he again sets out on a campaign. On July 12, the rebels approach Kazan and occupy the city, with the exception of the Kazan Kremlin, where the remnants of the garrison settled. However, the government troops arriving in time in the evening are forcing Pugachev to retreat. In the ensuing battle, the rebels were utterly defeated. Pugachev runs across the Volga, where he gathers a new army and announces a decree about the liberation of the serfs. This causes massive unrest among the peasants.
Pugachev talks about going to, but turns to the south. During the battle at the Solenikova gang, the rebels suffer a crushing defeat. Pugachev flees to the Volga, but his comrades-in-arms betray him and hand him over to the government. On January 10, 1775, the leader of the uprising was executed. At the beginning of the summer, the Pugachev rebellion was finally suppressed. The uprising resulted in the death of thousands of people and multimillion-dollar damage to the economy. Its result was the transformation of the Cossacks into regular military units, as well as some improvement in the lives of workers in the factories of the Urals. The position of the peasants practically did not change in any way.
The uprising led by E. Pugachev: reasons, goals, composition of participants, main stages, results, meaning Key dates and events: 1773-1775 GG. - peasant uprising led by E. I. Pugachev. Historical figures: E. I. Pugachev; Salavat Yulaev; I. N. Beloborodov; A. T. Khlopusha; I. N. Chika-Zarubin; A. I. Bibikov; I. I. Mikhelson; P.I. Panin. Response plan: 1) the reasons for peasant and national uprisings; 2) the personality of Pugachev, the demands of the rebels; 3) the main stages of the uprising; .4) reprisals against the insurgents; 5) the reasons for the defeat and the meaning of the uprising. Answer: The main reason for the peasant war was the strengthening of the power and arbitrariness of the priests over the peasants. Serfs had no rights and were subjected to bullying and torture by their masters. The landowner had no right to kill his serf. But this did not prevent, for example, the landowner of the Moscow district Saltykova (nicknamed "Saltychikha") to torture up to a hundred of her serfs. The landowner could, at his discretion, exile the peasants for the slightest offense and disobedience, or give them up to recruits, sell the serf or his family members. The peasants were gambled at cards and exchanged for dogs. the position of working people in factories was difficult. They were cut off from their families for many months, working 12-15 hours a day. Lack of normal working conditions caused illness and death of many workers. The ruling circles considered the representatives of non-Russian peoples to be people of the "second class". The entire second half of the 16th century. took place under the sign of the seizure of lands in the Volga and Ural regions by the Russian nobility. After the defeat of K. Bulavin's uprising, the Cossack self-government on the Don was liquidated. All this caused constant performances in various regions of the country. In 1773, numerous uprisings grew into the largest people's war in the history of Russia. EI Pugachev was born in the early 1740s. in the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don. During the Seven Years and the Russo-Turkish Wars, he bravely fought against opponents, and received the rank of cornet for his successes in the service. In 1771 he deserted from the army, was caught, sentenced to exile in Siberia and fled again. In August 1773 he went across the Yaik River and declared himself the "miraculously saved" Emperor Peter Sh. Soon he managed to rouse the Yaik Cossacks to revolt. Pugachev was a brave, energetic man, possessed of outstanding military and administrative abilities. To attract the people to his side, he sent out "lovely letters" in which he promised to make all participants in the movement free Cossacks, welcome them with land, lands, "cross" And "beard", herbs, lead, gunpowder, free taxes, to execute landlords and bribe-taking judges. Pugachev hoped to overthrow Catherine II and take the "father's throne", on which he would be his "peasant" king for the people. Such a program attracted many supporters to him. Peasants, working people, Tatars, Bashkirs, Kalmyks joined the Yaik Cossacks. All of them saw in Pugachev a liberator from the growing tyranny of landowners and tsarist authorities. The uprising can be divided into three main stages. The first stage began on September 11, 1773 with a speech by Pugachev to the Cossacks, in which he "revealed the secret of his name." The very next day the number of his supporters (at the beginning there were only 80 of them) doubled. For three weeks, more and more forces poured into Pugachev's detachment, he conquered one fortress after another almost without a fight. On October 5, the Pugachevites approached Orenburg and laid siege to it. The number of the rebels who took part in the siege was up to 30 thousand people. Among them are the Bashkirs, headed by Salavat Yulaev, and the mining workers of the Urals. Meanwhile, the government sent against the rebels the army of General Kara, numbering 1.5 thousand people, which was defeated by the detachments of Pugachev's associates - A. Ovchinnikov and I. Zarubin-Chiki. Panic gripped not only the "Orenburg inmates," but also Kazan. For the first time, fears began to be expressed in St. Petersburg. The siege of Orenburg lasted six months, but did not bring success to the besiegers. Against them, "government troops were assembled, led by General A. I. Bibikov. The battle of the tsarist troops and the forces of the rebels took place on March 22, 1774 near the Tatishchev fortress. It lasted almost six hours, the victory was on the side of the authorities. The first stage of the struggle of the Pugachevites ended in failure in the siege of Orenburg and the battle at Tatishcheva fortress.The second stage lasted from April to July 1774. Pugachev lifted the siege from Orenburg and retreated to the east - to the territory of Bashkiria and the Southern Urals. Soon the number of insurgents was already 1 O thousand people, and after the annexation of the Udmurts, Mari and Chuvashes increased to 20 thousand. Pugachev led his army to Kazan, which he managed to take in July 1774. But the Kremlin with the remains of the garrison settled there It did not succeed - the tsarist troops came to the aid of the besieged, headed by I.I.Mikhelson. Catherine was horrified by the campaign against Moscow. By her order, from that time until the suppression of the rebels, a ship stood in St. Petersburg, ready at any moment to take the empress out of the country. The third stage of the war - "peasant," - was the most massive in terms of the composition of the participants. On July 31, 1774, Pugachev issued a manifesto in which he freed the peasants from serfdom and taxes. Peasant uprisings now flared up on the right bank of the Volga. Meanwhile, Pugachev occupied a number of cities, which, however, under the pressure of government troops, was forced to leave. to replenish the army, he rushed to the south, where he was joined by the Don and Yaik Cossacks, barge haulers. With them he approached Tsaritsyn, but could not take possession of the city. Pugachev with a small detachment crossed to the left bank of the Volga. On September 12, 1774, he was captured and handed over to Mikhelson by the Cossack elite, who thus wished to buy themselves forgiveness for participating in the uprising. In January 1775, Pugachev was executed. However, the peasant uprisings were suppressed only a year later. The uprising led by Pugachev became the largest popular uprising in Russia in its entire history. the estate - the nobility, from which, in Pugachev's opinion, the main evil emanated.This was the first major joint action of peasants, working people and representatives of oppressed non-Russian peoples.But the rebels, denying the old order, could not offer anything in return. The "peasant tsar" was nothing more than a renewed idea of the "good tsar" characteristic of all previous popular uprisings. Only at some mining plants in the Urals were m Measures to increase wages and improve working conditions for workers. But the "Pugachevism", which shook to the very foundations the feudal empire of Catherine II, forced the authorities to look for ways to solve the peasant question, which remained the most important in the life of Russia.
PEASANT WAR UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF EMELYAN PUGACHEV
1773 - 1775
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Strengthening the power and arbitrariness of the landowners in relation to the peasants The plight of working people and registered peasants in factories Deterioration of the situation of non-Russian peoples of the Volga and Ural regions Liquidation by the authorities of the Cossack self-government on the Don and Yaik |
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Abolition of serfdom, taxes and recruitment Elimination of landlordism and the nobility Declaring all participants in the uprising free Cossacks Equality of peoples and beliefs The establishment of the power of the "peasant Tsar Peter III" in the country (E. Pugacheva) |
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The composition of the participants in the uprising |
Peasants Working people Bashkirs, Tatars, Kalmyks |
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The main |
Unsuccessful 6-month siege of Orenburg by Pugachev and defeat by government forces near the Tatishchev fortress Stage II: April - July 1774 The movement of Pugachev's troops from Orenburg through the Urals and the Kama region to Kazan July 12 - 17, 1774 - battle for Kazan. The capture of the city by the rebels, and then defeat by the troops of the colonel I. I. Mikhelson July 31, 1774 - Pugachev's decree on the release of peasants from serfdom and taxes Pugachev's movement from Kazan to the south Unsuccessful siege of Tsaritsyn by Pugachev |
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Results and significance |
The largest folk performance in Russia Combining anti-serfdom and national movements The uprising did not improve the position of the peasantry in the country The defeat of the rebels strengthened the repressive nature of the authorities' internal policy towards the tax-paying estates. |
