People's uprising 1773 1775. Pugachev's uprising. Briefly. Reasons for the defeat of the peasant uprising of Pugachev

The Cossacks write petitions to Orenburg and St. Petersburg, send so-called “winter villages” - delegates from the army with a complaint against the atamans and local authorities. Sometimes they achieved their goal, and especially unacceptable atamans changed, but on the whole the situation remained the same. In 1771, the Yaik Cossacks refused to go in pursuit of the Kalmyks who had migrated outside Russia. General Traubenberg and a detachment of soldiers went to investigate direct disobedience to the order. The result of the punishments he carried out was the Yaitsky Cossack uprising of 1772, during which General Traubenberg and the military ataman Tambov were killed. Troops under the command of General F. Yu. Freiman were sent to suppress the uprising. The rebels were defeated at the Embulatovka River in June 1772; As a result of the defeat, the Cossack circles were finally liquidated, a garrison of government troops was stationed in the Yaitsky town, and all power over the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the garrison, Lieutenant Colonel I. D. Simonov. The reprisal carried out against the caught instigators was extremely cruel and made a depressing impression on the army: never before had Cossacks been branded or had their tongues cut out. A large number of participants in the performance took refuge in distant steppe farms, excitement reigned everywhere, the state of the Cossacks was like a compressed spring.

No less tension was present among the heterodox peoples of the Urals and Volga region. The development of the Urals and the active colonization of the lands of the Volga region, which began in the 18th century, the construction and development of military border lines, the expansion of the Orenburg, Yaitsky and Siberian Cossack troops with the allocation of lands that previously belonged to local nomadic peoples, intolerant religious policies led to numerous unrest among the Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Mordvins, Chuvash, Udmurts, Kalmyks (most of the latter, having broken through the Yaitsky border line, migrated to Western China in 1771).

The situation at the fast-growing factories of the Urals was also explosive. Starting with Peter, the government solved the problem of labor in metallurgy mainly by assigning state peasants to state-owned and private mining factories, allowing new factory owners to buy serf villages and granting the unofficial right to keep runaway serfs, since the Berg Collegium, which was in charge of the factories , tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and deportation of all fugitives. At the same time, it was very convenient to take advantage of the lack of rights and hopeless situation of the fugitives, and if anyone began to express dissatisfaction with their situation, they were immediately handed over to the authorities for punishment. Former peasants resisted forced labor in factories.

Peasants assigned to state-owned and private factories dreamed of returning to their usual village labor, while the situation of peasants on serf estates was little better. The economic situation in the country, almost continuously waging one war after another, was difficult; in addition, the gallant age required the nobles to follow the latest fashions and trends. Therefore, landowners increase the area under crops, and corvée increases. The peasants themselves become a hot commodity, they are pawned, exchanged, and entire villages simply lose out. To top it off, Catherine II issued a Decree of August 22, 1767, prohibiting peasants from complaining about landowners. In conditions of complete impunity and personal dependence, the slave position of the peasants is aggravated by the whims, caprices or real crimes occurring on the estates, and most of them were left without investigation or consequences.

In this situation, the most fantastic rumors easily found their way about imminent freedom or about the transfer of all the peasants to the treasury, about the ready decree of the tsar, whose wife and boyars were killed for this, that the tsar was not killed, but he is hiding until better times - all of them fell on the fertile soil of general human dissatisfaction with their current situation. There was simply no legal opportunity left for all groups of future participants in the performance to defend their interests.

The beginning of the uprising

Emelyan Pugachev. Portrait attached to the publication of “The History of the Pugachev Rebellion” by A. S. Pushkin, 1834

Despite the fact that the internal readiness of the Yaik Cossacks for the uprising was high, the speech lacked a unifying idea, a core that would unite the sheltered and hidden participants in the unrest of 1772. The rumor that the miraculously saved Emperor Peter Fedorovich (Emperor Peter III, who died during the coup after a six-month reign) appeared in the army, instantly spread throughout Yaik.

Few of the Cossack leaders believed in the resurrected tsar, but everyone looked closely to see if this man was able to lead, to gather under his banner an army capable of equaling the government. The man who called himself Peter III was Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev - a Don Cossack, a native of the Zimoveyskaya village (which had already given birth to Russian history Stepan Razin and Kondraty Bulavin), a participant in the Seven Years' War and the war with Turkey of 1768-1774.

Finding himself in the Trans-Volga steppes in the fall of 1772, he stopped in the Mechetnaya Sloboda and here from the abbot of the Old Believer skete Filaret learned about the unrest among the Yaik Cossacks. Where the idea of calling himself a tsar came from in his head and what his initial plans were is not known for certain, but in November 1772 he arrived in the Yaitsky town and at meetings with the Cossacks called himself Peter III. Upon returning to Irgiz, Pugachev was arrested and sent to Kazan, from where he fled at the end of May 1773. In August, he reappeared in the army, at the inn of Stepan Obolyaev, where he was visited by his future closest associates - Shigaev, Zarubin, Karavaev, Myasnikov.

In September, hiding from search parties, Pugachev, accompanied by a group of Cossacks, arrived at the Budarinsky outpost, where on September 17 his first decree to the Yaitsk army was announced. The author of the decree was one of the few literate Cossacks, 19-year-old Ivan Pochitalin, sent by his father to serve the “tsar”. From here a detachment of 80 Cossacks headed up the Yaik. Along the way, new supporters joined, so that by the time they arrived at the Yaitsky town on September 18, the detachment already numbered 300 people. On September 18, 1773, an attempt to cross the Chagan and enter the city ended in failure, but at the same time a large group of Cossacks, among those sent by Commandant Simonov to defend the town, went over to the side of the impostor. A repeated rebel attack on September 19 was also repulsed with artillery. The rebel detachment did not have its own cannons, so it was decided to move further up the Yaik, and on September 20 the Cossacks set up camp near the Iletsky town.

Here a circle was convened, at which the troops elected Andrei Ovchinnikov as the marching ataman, all the Cossacks swore allegiance to the great sovereign Emperor Peter Fedorovich, after which Pugachev sent Ovchinnikov to the Iletsky town with decrees to the Cossacks: “ And whatever you wish, all benefits and salaries will not be denied to you; and your glory will never expire; and both you and your descendants will be the first under me, the great sovereign, to obey". Despite the opposition of the Iletsk ataman Portnov, Ovchinnikov convinced the local Cossacks to join the uprising, and they greeted Pugachev with ringing bells and bread and salt.

All Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Pugachev. The first execution took place: according to complaints from the residents - “he did great harm to them and ruined them” - Portnov was hanged. From the Iletsk Cossacks it was composed separate regiment Led by Ivan Tvorogov, the army received all the artillery of the town. The Yaik Cossack Fyodor Chumakov was appointed head of the artillery.

Map of the initial stage of the uprising

After a two-day meeting on further actions, it was decided to send the main forces to Orenburg, the capital of a huge region under the control of the hated Reinsdorp. On the way to Orenburg there were small fortresses of the Nizhne-Yaitsky distance of the Orenburg military line. The garrison of the fortresses was, as a rule, mixed - Cossacks and soldiers, their life and service were perfectly described by Pushkin in The Captain's Daughter.

And already on October 5, Pugachev’s army approached the city, setting up a temporary camp five miles away. The Cossacks were sent to the ramparts and managed to convey Pugachev’s decree to the garrison troops with a call to lay down their arms and join the “sovereign.” In response, cannons from the city rampart began firing at the rebels. On October 6, Reinsdorp ordered a sortie; a detachment of 1,500 people under the command of Major Naumov returned to the fortress after a two-hour battle. At the military council assembled on October 7, it was decided to defend behind the walls of the fortress under the cover of fortress artillery. One of the reasons for this decision was the fear of soldiers and Cossacks going over to Pugachev’s side. The sortie carried out showed that the soldiers fought reluctantly, Major Naumov reported that he had discovered “there is timidity and fear in his subordinates”.

Together with Karanai Muratov, Kaskyn Samarov captured Sterlitamak and Tabynsk, from November 28, the Pugachevites under the command of Ataman Ivan Gubanov and Kaskyn Samarov besieged Ufa, from December 14, the siege was commanded by Ataman Chika-Zarubin. On December 23, Zarubin, at the head of a 10,000-strong detachment with 15 cannons, began an assault on the city, but was repulsed by cannon fire and energetic counterattacks of the garrison.

Ataman Ivan Gryaznov, who participated in the capture of Sterlitamak and Tabynsk, gathered a detachment of factory peasants and captured factories on the Belaya River (Voskresensky, Arkhangelsky, Bogoyavlensky factories). In early November, he proposed organizing the casting of cannons and cannonballs at nearby factories. Pugachev promoted him to colonel and sent him to organize detachments in the Iset province. There he took the Satkinsky, Zlatoust, Kyshtymsky and Kaslinsky factories, the Kundravinskaya, Uvelskaya and Varlamov settlements, the Chebarkul fortress, defeated the punitive teams sent against him, and by January he approached Chelyabinsk with a detachment of four thousand.

In December 1773, Pugachev sent ataman Mikhail Tolkachev with his decrees to the rulers of the Kazakh Junior Zhuz, Nurali Khan and Sultan Dusali, with a call to join his army, but the khan decided to wait for developments; only the riders of the Sarym Datula clan joined Pugachev. On way back Tolkachev gathered Cossacks into his detachment in the fortresses and outposts on the lower Yaik and headed with them to the Yaitsky town, collecting guns, ammunition and provisions in the associated fortresses and outposts. On December 30, Tolkachev approached the Yaitsky town, seven miles from which he defeated and captured the Cossack team of foreman N.A. Mostovshchikov sent against him; in the evening of the same day he occupied the ancient district of the city - Kureni. Most of the Cossacks greeted their comrades and joined Tolkachev’s detachment, the Cossacks of the senior side, the garrison soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Simonov and Captain Krylov locked themselves in the “retransference” - the fortress of the St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral, the cathedral itself was its main citadel. Gunpowder was stored in the basement of the bell tower, and cannons and arrows were installed on the upper tiers. It was not possible to take the fortress on the move.

In total, according to rough estimates by historians, by the end of 1773 there were from 25 to 40 thousand people in the ranks of Pugachev’s army, more than half of this number were Bashkir detachments. To control the troops, Pugachev created the Military Collegium, which served as an administrative and military center and conducted extensive correspondence with remote areas of the uprising. A. I. Vitoshnov, M. G. Shigaev, D. G. Skobychkin and I. A. Tvorogov were appointed judges of the Military Collegium, I. Ya. Pochitalin, the “Duma” clerk, and M. D. Gorshkov, the secretary.

The house of the "Tsar's father-in-law" Cossack Kuznetsov - now the Pugachev Museum in Uralsk

In January 1774, Ataman Ovchinnikov led a campaign to the lower reaches of the Yaik, to the Guryev town, stormed its Kremlin, captured rich trophies and replenished the detachment with local Cossacks, bringing them to the Yait town. At the same time, Pugachev himself arrived in Yaitsky town. He took over the leadership of the protracted siege of the city fortress of the Archangel Cathedral, but after a failed assault on January 20, he returned to the main army near Orenburg. At the end of January, Pugachev returned to the Yaitsky town, where a military circle was held, at which N.A. Kargin was chosen as military chieftain, A.P. Perfilyev and I.A. Fofanov were chosen as chief officers. At the same time, the Cossacks, wanting to finally unite the tsar with the army, married him to a young Cossack woman, Ustinya Kuznetsova. In the second half of February and early March 1774, Pugachev again personally led attempts to take possession of the besieged fortress. On February 19, a mine explosion blew up and destroyed the bell tower of St. Michael's Cathedral, but the garrison each time managed to repel the attacks of the besiegers.

Detachments of Pugachevites under the command of Ivan Beloborodov, which grew up to 3 thousand people during the campaign, approached Yekaterinburg, along the way capturing a number of surrounding fortresses and factories, and on January 20, they captured the Demidov Shaitansky plant as their main base of operations.

The situation in besieged Orenburg by this time was already critical; famine had begun in the city. Having learned about the departure of Pugachev and Ovchinnikov with part of the troops to the Yaitsky town, Governor Reinsdorp decided to make a foray to Berdskaya Sloboda on January 13 to lift the siege. But the unexpected attack did not happen; the Cossack patrols managed to raise the alarm. The atamans M. Shigaev, D. Lysov, T. Podurov and Khlopusha who remained in the camp led their detachments to the ravine that surrounded the Berdskaya settlement and served as a natural line of defense. The Orenburg corps were forced to fight in unfavorable conditions and suffered a severe defeat. With heavy losses, abandoning cannons, weapons, ammunition and ammunition, the half-encircled Orenburg troops hastily retreated to Orenburg under the cover of the city walls, losing only 281 people killed, 13 cannons with all the shells for them, a lot of weapons, ammunition and ammunition.

On January 25, 1774, the Pugachevites launched the second and final assault on Ufa, Zarubin attacked the city from the southwest, from the left bank of the Belaya River, and Ataman Gubanov - from the east. At first, the detachments were successful and even broke into the outskirts of the city, but there their offensive impulse was stopped by grapeshot fire from the defenders. Having pulled all available forces to the breakthrough sites, the garrison drove first Zarubin and then Gubanov out of the city.

In early January, the Chelyabinsk Cossacks rebelled and tried to seize power in the city in the hope of help from the troops of Ataman Gryaznov, but were defeated by the city garrison. On January 10, Gryaznov unsuccessfully attempted to take Chelyaba by storm, and on January 13, General I. A. Dekolong’s 2,000-strong corps, which arrived from Siberia, entered Chelyaba. Throughout January, fighting unfolded on the outskirts of the city, and on February 8, Delong decided it was best to leave the city to the Pugachevites.

On February 16, Khlopushi’s detachment took the Iletsk Defense by storm, killing all the officers, taking possession of weapons, ammunition and provisions, and taking with them those fit for duty. military service convicts, Cossacks and soldiers.

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasant War area

When news reached St. Petersburg about the defeat of the expedition of V. A. Kara and the unauthorized departure of Kara himself to Moscow, Catherine II, by decree of November 27, appointed A. I. Bibikov as the new commander. The new punitive corps included 10 cavalry and infantry regiments, as well as 4 light field teams, hastily sent from the western and northwestern borders of the empire to Kazan and Samara, and besides them - all garrisons and military units located in the uprising zone, and remnants of Kara's corps. Bibikov arrived in Kazan on December 25, 1773, and the movement of regiments and brigades immediately began under the command of P. M. Golitsyn and P. D. Mansurov to Samara, Orenburg, Ufa, Menzelinsk, and Kungur, besieged by Pugachev’s troops. Already on December 29, the 24th light field command, led by Major K.I. Mufel, reinforced by two squadrons of Bakhmut hussars and other units, recaptured Samara. Arapov, with several dozen Pugachevites who remained with him, retreated to Alekseevsk, but the brigade led by Mansurov defeated his troops in battles near Alekseevsk and at the Buzuluk fortress, after which in Sorochinskaya they united on March 10 with the corps of General Golitsyn, who approached there, advancing from Kazan, defeating the rebels near Menzelinsk and Kungur.

Having received information about the advance of the Mansurov and Golitsyn brigades, Pugachev decided to withdraw the main forces from Orenburg, effectively lifting the siege, and concentrate the main forces in the Tatishchev Fortress. Instead of the burnt walls, an ice rampart was built, and all available artillery was collected. Soon a government detachment consisting of 6,500 people and 25 cannons approached the fortress. The battle took place on March 22 and was extremely fierce. Prince Golitsyn in his report to A. Bibikov wrote: “The matter was so important that I did not expect such insolence and control in such unenlightened people in the military profession as these defeated rebels are.”. When the situation became hopeless, Pugachev decided to return to Berdy. His retreat was covered by the Cossack regiment of Ataman Ovchinnikov. With his regiment, he staunchly defended himself until the cannon charges ran out, and then, with three hundred Cossacks, he managed to break through the troops surrounding the fortress and retreated to the Nizhneozernaya fortress. This was the first major defeat of the rebels. Pugachev lost about 2 thousand people killed, 4 thousand wounded and prisoners, all the artillery and convoys. Among the dead was Ataman Ilya Arapov.

Map of the second stage of the Peasant War

At the same time, the St. Petersburg Carabineer Regiment under the command of I. Mikhelson, previously stationed in Poland and aimed at suppressing the uprising, arrived on March 2, 1774 in Kazan and, reinforced by cavalry units, was immediately sent to suppress the uprising in the Kama region. On March 24, in a battle near Ufa, near the village of Chesnokovka, he defeated the troops under the command of Chika-Zarubin, and two days later captured Zarubin himself and his entourage. Having won victories in the territory of the Ufa and Iset provinces over the detachments of Salavat Yulaev and other Bashkir colonels, he failed to suppress the uprising of the Bashkirs as a whole, since the Bashkirs switched to guerrilla tactics.

Leaving Mansurov's brigade in the Tatishchevoy fortress, Golitsyn continued his march to Orenburg, where he entered on March 29, while Pugachev, having gathered his troops, tried to break through to the Yaitsky town, but having met government troops near the Perevolotsk fortress, he was forced to turn to the Sakmarsky town, where he decided to give battle to Golitsyn. In the battle on April 1, the rebels were again defeated, over 2,800 people were captured, including Maxim Shigaev, Andrei Vitoshnov, Timofey Podurov, Ivan Pochitalin and others. Pugachev himself, breaking away from the enemy pursuit, fled with several hundred Cossacks to the Prechistenskaya fortress, and from there he went beyond the bend of the Belaya River, to the mining region of the Southern Urals, where the rebels had reliable support.

At the beginning of April, the brigade of P. D. Mansurov, reinforced by the Izyum Hussar Regiment and the Cossack detachment of the Yaitsky foreman M. M. Borodin, headed from the Tatishchevoy fortress to the Yaitsky town. The Nizhneozernaya and Rassypnaya fortresses and the Iletsky town were taken from the Pugachevites; on April 12, the Cossack rebels were defeated at the Irtetsk outpost. In an effort to stop the advance of the punitive forces towards their native Yaitsky town, the Cossacks, led by A. A. Ovchinnikov, A. P. Perfilyev and K. I. Dekhtyarev, decided to move towards Mansurov. The meeting took place on April 15, 50 versts east of the Yaitsky town, near the Bykovka River. Having gotten involved in the battle, the Cossacks were unable to resist the regular troops; a retreat began, which gradually turned into a stampede. Pursued by the hussars, the Cossacks retreated to the Rubezhny outpost, losing hundreds of people killed, among whom was Dekhtyarev. Having gathered people, Ataman Ovchinnikov led a detachment through the remote steppes to the Southern Urals, to connect with Pugachev’s troops, who had gone beyond the Belaya River.

On the evening of April 15, when in the Yaitsky town they learned about the defeat at Bykovka, a group of Cossacks, wanting to curry favor with the punitive forces, tied up and handed over the atamans Kargin and Tolkachev to Simonov. Mansurov entered the Yaitsky town on April 16, finally liberating the city fortress, besieged by the Pugachevites since December 30, 1773. The Cossacks who fled to the steppe were unable to make their way to the main area of the uprising; in May-July 1774, the teams of Mansurov’s brigade and the Cossacks of the senior side began a search and defeat in the Priyaitsk steppe, near the Uzenei and Irgiz rivers, the rebel detachments of F. I. Derbetev, S. L Rechkina, I. A. Fofanova.

At the beginning of April 1774, the corps of Second Major Gagrin, which approached from Yekaterinburg, defeated Tumanov’s detachment located in Chelyab. And on May 1, the team of Lieutenant Colonel D. Kandaurov, who arrived from Astrakhan, recaptured the town of Guryev from the rebels.

On April 9, 1774, the commander of military operations against Pugachev, A.I. Bibikov, died. After him, Catherine II entrusted the command of the troops to Lieutenant General F. F. Shcherbatov, as the senior in rank. Offended that he was not appointed to the post of commander of the troops, having sent small teams to nearby fortresses and villages to carry out investigations and punishments, General Golitsyn with the main forces of his corps stayed in Orenburg for three months. Intrigues between the generals gave Pugachev a much-needed respite; he managed to gather scattered small detachments in the Southern Urals. The pursuit was also suspended by the spring thaw and floods on the rivers, which made the roads impassable.

Ural mine. Painting by Demidov serf artist V. P. Khudoyarov

On the morning of May 5, Pugachev’s detachment of five thousand approached the Magnetic Fortress. By this time, Pugachev’s detachment consisted mainly of weakly armed factory peasants and a small number of personal egg guards under the command of Myasnikov; the detachment did not have a single cannon. The start of the assault on Magnitnaya was unsuccessful, about 500 people died in the battle, Pugachev himself was wounded in his right hand. Having withdrawn the troops from the fortress and discussed the situation, the rebels, under the cover of the darkness of the night, made a new attempt and were able to break into the fortress and capture it. 10 cannons, rifles, and ammunition were taken as trophies. On May 7, detachments of atamans A. Ovchinnikov, A. Perfilyev, I. Beloborodov and S. Maksimov arrived at Magnitnaya from different directions.

Heading up the Yaik, the rebels captured the fortresses of Karagai, Peter and Paul and Stepnaya and on May 20 approached the largest Trinity. By this time, the detachment numbered 10 thousand people. During the assault that began, the garrison tried to repel the attack with artillery fire, but overcoming desperate resistance, the rebels broke into Troitskaya. Pugachev received artillery with shells and reserves of gunpowder, supplies of provisions and fodder. On the morning of May 21, Delong's corps attacked the rebels resting after the battle. Taken by surprise, the Pugachevites suffered a heavy defeat, losing 4,000 people killed and the same number wounded and captured. Only one and a half thousand mounted Cossacks and Bashkirs were able to retreat along the road to Chelyabinsk.

Salavat Yulaev, who had recovered from his wound, managed to organize resistance to Mikhelson’s detachment in Bashkiria at that time, east of Ufa, covering Pugachev’s army from his stubborn pursuit. In the battles that took place on May 6, 8, 17, and 31, Salavat, although he was not successful in them, did not allow his troops to inflict significant losses. On June 3, he united with Pugachev, by which time the Bashkirs made up two-thirds of the total number of the rebel army. On June 3 and 5 on the Ai River they gave new battles to Mikhelson. Neither side received the desired success. Retreating north, Pugachev regrouped his forces while Mikhelson retreated to Ufa to drive away the Bashkir detachments operating near the city and replenish supplies of ammunition and provisions.

Taking advantage of the respite, Pugachev headed towards Kazan. On June 10, the Krasnoufimskaya fortress was taken, and on June 11, a victory was won in the battle near Kungur against the garrison that had made a sortie. Without attempting to storm Kungur, Pugachev turned west. On June 14, the vanguard of his army under the command of Ivan Beloborodov and Salavat Yulaev approached the Kama town of Ose and blocked the city fortress. Four days later, Pugachev’s main forces arrived here and began siege battles with the garrison settled in the fortress. On June 21, the defenders of the fortress, having exhausted the possibilities of further resistance, capitulated. During this period, the adventurer merchant Astafy Dolgopolov (“Ivan Ivanov”) came to Pugachev, posing as an envoy of Tsarevich Pavel and thus deciding to improve his financial situation. Pugachev unraveled his adventure, and Dolgopolov, by agreement with him, acted for some time as a “witness to the authenticity of Peter III.”

Having captured Osa, Pugachev transported the army across the Kama, took the Votkinsk and Izhevsk ironworks, Yelabuga, Sarapul, Menzelinsk, Agryz, Zainsk, Mamadysh and other cities and fortresses along the way, and in early July approached Kazan.

View of the Kazan Kremlin

A detachment under the command of Colonel Tolstoy came out to meet Pugachev, and on July 10, 12 versts from the city, the Pugachevites won a complete victory. The next day, a detachment of rebels camped near the city. “In the evening, in view of all the Kazan residents, he (Pugachev) himself went to look out for the city, and returned to the camp, postponing the attack until the next morning.”. On July 12, as a result of the assault, the suburbs and main areas of the city were taken, the garrison remaining in the city locked itself in the Kazan Kremlin and prepared for a siege. A strong fire began in the city, in addition, Pugachev received news of the approach of Mikhelson’s troops, who were following on his heels from Ufa, so the Pugachev detachments left the burning city. As a result of a short battle, Mikhelson made his way to the garrison of Kazan, Pugachev retreated across the Kazanka River. Both sides were preparing for the decisive battle, which took place on July 15. Pugachev's army numbered 25 thousand people, but most of them were weakly armed peasants who had just joined the uprising, Tatar and Bashkir cavalry armed with bows, and a small number of remaining Cossacks. The competent actions of Mikhelson, who struck first of all at the Yaik core of the Pugachevites, led to the complete defeat of the rebels, at least 2 thousand people died, about 5 thousand were taken prisoner, among whom was Colonel Ivan Beloborodov.

Announced publicly

We congratulate you with this named decree with our royal and fatherly
the mercy of all who were formerly in the peasantry and
subject to the landowners, to be loyal slaves
our own crown; and rewarded with an ancient cross
and prayer, heads and beards, liberty and freedom
and forever Cossacks, without requiring recruitment, capitation
and other monetary taxes, ownership of lands, forests,
hayfields and fishing grounds, and salt lakes
without purchase and without rent; and free everyone from what was previously done
from the villains of the nobles and the bribery-takers of the city-judges to the peasants and everything
taxes and burdens imposed on the people. And we wish you the salvation of souls
and calm in the light of life for which we have tasted and endured
from the registered villains-nobles, wandering and considerable disaster.

And what is our name now by the power of the Most High Right Hand in Russia?
flourishes, for this reason we command with this personal decree:
which formerly were nobles in their estates and vodchinas, - of which
opponents of our power and troublemakers of the empire and despoilers
peasants, to catch, execute and hang, and to do the same,
what they did to you, peasants, without Christianity in them.
After the destruction of which opponents and villainous nobles, anyone can
feel the silence and quiet life, which will continue until the century.

Given July 31st day 1774.

By the grace of God, we, Peter the Third,

Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia and so on,

And on and on and on.

Even before the start of the battle on July 15, Pugachev announced in the camp that he would head from Kazan to Moscow. Rumors of this instantly spread throughout all the nearby villages, estates and towns. Despite the major defeat of Pugachev's army, the flames of the uprising engulfed the entire western bank of the Volga. Having crossed the Volga at Kokshaysk, below the village of Sundyr, Pugachev replenished his army with thousands of peasants. By this time, Salavat Yulaev and his troops continued fighting near Ufa; the Bashkir troops in the Pugachev detachment were led by Kinzya Arslanov. On July 20, Pugachev entered Kurmysh, on the 23rd he freely entered Alatyr, after which he headed towards Saransk. On July 28, in the central square of Saransk, a decree on freedom for peasants was read out, supplies of salt and bread, and the city treasury were distributed to residents “driving around the city fortress and along the streets... they abandoned the mob that had come from different districts”. On July 31, the same solemn meeting awaited Pugachev in Penza. The decrees caused numerous peasant revolts in the Volga region; in total, scattered detachments operating within their estates numbered tens of thousands of fighters. The movement covered most of the Volga districts, approached the borders of the Moscow province, and really threatened Moscow.

The publication of decrees (in fact, manifestos on the liberation of peasants) in Saransk and Penza is called the culmination of the Peasant War. The decrees made a strong impression on the peasants, on the Old Believers hiding from persecution, on the opposite side - the nobles and on Catherine II herself. The enthusiasm that gripped the peasants of the Volga region led to the fact that a population of more than a million people was involved in the uprising. They could give nothing to Pugachev’s army in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments operated no further than their estate. But they turned Pugachev’s campaign across the Volga region into a triumphal procession, with bells ringing, the blessing of the village priest and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. When Pugachev’s army or its individual detachments approached, the peasants tied up or killed their landowners and their clerks, hanged local officials, burned estates, and smashed shops. In total, in the summer of 1774, at least 3 thousand nobles and government officials were killed.

In the second half of July 1774, when the flames of the Pugachev uprising approached the borders of the Moscow province and threatened Moscow itself, the alarmed empress was forced to agree to the proposal of Chancellor N.I. Panin to appoint his brother, the disgraced general-in-chief Pyotr Ivanovich Panin, commander of a military expedition against rebels. General F. F. Shcherbatov was expelled from this post on July 22, and by decree of July 29, Catherine II gave Panin emergency powers “in suppressing rebellion and restoring internal order in the provinces of Orenburg, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod”. It is noteworthy that under the command of P.I. Panin, who received the Order of St. for the capture of Bendery in 1770. George I class, Don cornet Emelyan Pugachev also distinguished himself in that battle.

To speed up the conclusion of peace, the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty were softened, and the troops released on the Turkish borders - a total of 20 cavalry and infantry regiments - were recalled from the armies to act against Pugachev. As Ekaterina noted, against Pugachev “So many troops were equipped that such an army was almost terrible for its neighbors”. It is noteworthy that in August 1774, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals. Panin entrusted Suvorov with command of the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

Suppression of the uprising

After Pugachev’s triumphant entry into Saransk and Penza, everyone expected his march to Moscow. Seven regiments under the personal command of P.I. Panin were gathered in Moscow, where memories of the Plague Riot of 1771 were still fresh. Moscow Governor-General Prince M.N. Volkonsky ordered artillery to be placed near his house. The police strengthened surveillance and sent informants to crowded places in order to capture all those who sympathized with Pugachev. Mikhelson, who was promoted to colonel in July and was pursuing the rebels from Kazan, turned towards Arzamas to block the road to the old capital. General Mansurov set out from the Yaitsky town to Syzran, General Golitsyn - to Saransk. The punitive teams of Mufel and Mellin reported that Pugachev was leaving rebellious villages behind him everywhere and they did not have time to pacify them all. “Not only peasants, but priests, monks, even archimandrites outrage sensitive and insensitive people”. Excerpts from the report of the captain of the Novokhopyorsky battalion Butrimovich are indicative:

“...I went to the village of Andreevskaya, where the peasants were keeping the landowner Dubensky under arrest in order to extradite him to Pugachev. I wanted to free him, but the village rebelled and the team was dispersed. From there I went to the villages of Mr. Vysheslavtsev and Prince Maksyutin, but I also found them under arrest among the peasants, and I freed them and took them to Verkhny Lomov; from the village of Prince I saw Maksyutin as a mountain. Kerensk was burning and, returning to Verkhny Lomov, he learned that all the inhabitants there, except the clerks, had rebelled when they learned about the burning of Kerensk. Starters: one-palace Yak. Gubanov, Matv. Bochkov, and the Streltsy settlement of the tenth Bezborod. I wanted to grab them and bring them to Voronezh, but the residents not only did not allow me to do so, but also almost put me under their guard, but I left them and 2 miles from the city I heard the cry of the rioters. I don’t know how it all ended, but I heard that Kerensk, with the help of captured Turks, fought off the villain. During my travels, I noticed everywhere among the people a spirit of rebellion and a tendency towards the Pretender. Especially in Tanbovsky district, the departments of Prince. Vyazemsky, in economic peasants, who, for Pugachev’s arrival, repaired bridges everywhere and repaired roads. Moreover, the village headman of Lipnego and his guards, considering me an accomplice of the villain, came to me and fell to their knees.”

Map of the final stage of the uprising

But from Penza Pugachev turned south. Most historians point to the reason for this as Pugachev’s plans to attract the Volga and, especially, Don Cossacks into his ranks. It is possible that another reason was the desire of the Yaik Cossacks, tired of fighting and having already lost their main atamans, to hide again in the remote steppes of the lower Volga and Yaik, where they had already taken refuge once after the uprising of 1772. An indirect confirmation of such fatigue is that it was during these days that the conspiracy of Cossack colonels began to surrender Pugachev to the government in exchange for receiving a pardon.

On August 4, the impostor's army took Petrovsk, and on August 6, it surrounded Saratov. The governor with part of the people along the Volga managed to get to Tsaritsyn and after the battle on August 7, Saratov was taken. Saratov priests in all churches served prayers for the health of Emperor Peter III. Here Pugachev sent a decree to the Kalmyk ruler Tsenden-Darzhe with a call to join his army. But by this time, punitive detachments under the overall command of Mikhelson were already literally on the heels of the Pugachevites, and on August 11 the city came under the control of government troops.

After Saratov, we went down the Volga to Kamyshin, which, like many cities before it, greeted Pugachev with the ringing of bells and bread and salt. Near Kamyshin in the German colonies, Pugachev’s troops encountered the Astrakhan astronomical expedition of the Academy of Sciences, many members of which, along with the leader, Academician Georg Lowitz, were hanged along with local officials who failed to escape. Lowitz's son, Tobias, later also an academician, managed to survive. Having joined a 3,000-strong detachment of Kalmyks, the rebels entered the villages of the Volga army Antipovskaya and Karavainskaya, where they received widespread support and from where messengers were sent to the Don with decrees on the Don people joining the uprising. A detachment of government troops that arrived from Tsaritsyn was defeated on the Proleika River near the village of Balyklevskaya. Further along the road was Dubovka, the capital of the Volga Cossack Host. Since the Volga Cossacks, led by the ataman, remained loyal to the government, the garrisons of the Volga cities strengthened the defense of Tsaritsyn, where a thousand-strong detachment of Don Cossacks arrived under the command of the marching ataman Perfilov.

“A true portrayal of the rebel and deceiver Emelka Pugachev.” Engraving. Second half of the 1770s

On August 21, Pugachev tried to attack Tsaritsyn, but the assault failed. Having received news of Mikhelson's arriving corps, Pugachev hastened to lift the siege of Tsaritsyn, and the rebels moved to Black Yar. Panic began in Astrakhan. On August 24, at the Solenikovo fishing gang, Pugachev was overtaken by Mikhelson. Realizing that a battle could not be avoided, the Pugachevites formed battle formations. On August 25, the last major battle between the troops under the command of Pugachev and the tsarist troops took place. The battle began with a major setback - all 24 cannons of the rebel army were repulsed by a cavalry attack. More than 2,000 rebels died in a fierce battle, among them Ataman Ovchinnikov. More than 6,000 people were captured. Pugachev and the Cossacks, breaking up into small detachments, fled across the Volga. Search detachments of generals Mansurov and Golitsyn, Yaik foreman Borodin and Don Colonel Tavinsky were sent in pursuit of them. Not having time for the battle, Lieutenant General Suvorov also wanted to participate in the capture. During August-September, most of the participants in the uprising were caught and sent for investigation to the Yaitsky town, Simbirsk, and Orenburg.

Pugachev with a detachment of Cossacks fled to Uzeni, not knowing that since mid-August Chumakov, Tvorogov, Fedulev and some other colonels had been discussing the possibility of earning forgiveness by surrendering the impostor. Under the pretext of making it easier to escape the pursuit, they divided the detachment so as to separate the Cossacks loyal to Pugachev along with Ataman Perfilyev. On September 8, near the Bolshoi Uzen River, they pounced and tied up Pugachev, after which Chumakov and Tvorogov went to Yaitsky town, where on September 11 they announced the capture of the impostor. Having received promises of pardon, they notified their accomplices, and on September 15 they brought Pugachev to the Yaitsky town. The first interrogations took place, one of them was conducted personally by Suvorov, who also volunteered to escort the impostor to Simbirsk, where the main investigation was taking place. To transport Pugachev, a tight cage was made, installed on a two-wheeled cart, in which, chained hand and foot, he could not even turn around. In Simbirsk, he was interrogated for five days by P. S. Potemkin, head of the secret investigative commissions, and Count P. I. Panin, commander of the government's punitive forces.

Perfilyev and his detachment were captured on September 12 after a battle with punitive forces near the Derkul River.

Pugachev under escort. Engraving from the 1770s

At this time, in addition to scattered centers of uprising, military operations in Bashkiria were of an organized nature. Salavat Yulaev, together with his father Yulay Aznalin, led the rebel movement in Siberian road, Karanay Muratov, Kachkyn Samarov, Selyausin Kinzin - on Nogaiskaya, Bazargul Yunaev, Yulaman Kushaev and Mukhamet Safarov - in the Bashkir Trans-Urals. They pinned down a significant contingent of government troops. At the beginning of August, a new assault on Ufa was even launched, but as a result of poor organization of interaction between various detachments, it was unsuccessful. Kazakh detachments harassed with raids along the entire border line. Governor Reinsdorp reported: “The Bashkirs and Kyrgyzs are not pacified, the latter constantly cross the Yaik, and grab people from near Orenburg. The troops here are either pursuing Pugachev or blocking his path, and I can’t go against the Kyrgyz people, I admonish the Khan and the Saltans. They replied that they could not hold back the Kyrgyz people, of whom the entire horde was rebelling.”. With the capture of Pugachev and the dispatch of liberated government troops to Bashkiria, the transition of Bashkir elders to the side of the government began, many of them joined the punitive detachments. After the capture of Kanzafar Usaev and Salavat Yulaev, the uprising in Bashkiria began to decline. Mine last Stand Salavat Yulaev fought on November 20 under the Katav-Ivanovsky plant, which he besieged, and after the defeat he was captured on November 25. But individual rebel groups in Bashkiria continued to resist until the summer of 1775.

Until the summer of 1775, unrest continued in the Voronezh province, in the Tambov district and along the Khopru and Vorone rivers. Although the operating detachments were small and there was no coordination of joint actions, according to eyewitness Major Sverchkov, “many landowners, leaving their homes and savings, move to remote places, and those who remain in their houses save their lives from threatened death by spending the night in the forests”. The frightened landowners declared that “If the Voronezh provincial chancellery does not speed up the extermination of those villainous gangs, then the same bloodshed will inevitably follow as happened in the last rebellion.”

To stem the wave of riots, punitive detachments began mass executions. In every village, in every town that received Pugachev, on the gallows and “verbs”, from which they barely had time to remove the officers, landowners, and judges hanged by the impostor, they began to hang the leaders of the riots and the city heads and atamans of local detachments appointed by the Pugachevites. To enhance the terrifying effect, the gallows were installed on rafts and floated along the main rivers of the uprising. In May, Khlopushi was executed in Orenburg: his head was placed on a pole in the city center. During the investigation, the entire medieval set of proven means was used. In terms of cruelty and number of victims, Pugachev and the government were not inferior to each other.

In November, all the main participants in the uprising were transported to Moscow for a general investigation. They were placed in the building of the Mint at the Iversky Gate of China Town. The interrogations were led by Prince M.N. Volkonsky and Chief Secretary S.I. Sheshkovsky. During interrogation, E. I. Pugachev gave detailed testimony about his relatives, about his youth, about his participation in the Don Cossack Army in the Seven Years and Turkish wars, about his wanderings around Russia and Poland, about his plans and intentions, about the progress of the uprising. Investigators tried to find out whether the initiators of the uprising were agents foreign countries, or schismatics, or anyone from the nobility. Catherine II showed great interest in the progress of the investigation. In the materials of the Moscow investigation, several notes from Catherine II to M.N. Volkonsky were preserved with wishes about the plan in which the investigation should be conducted, which issues require the most complete and detailed investigation, which witnesses should be additionally interviewed. On December 5, M.N. Volkonsky and P.S. Potemkin signed a determination to terminate the investigation, since Pugachev and other defendants could not add anything new to their testimony during interrogations and could not in any way alleviate or aggravate their guilt. In their report to Catherine they were forced to admit that they “...with this investigation being carried out, we tried to find the beginning of the evil undertaken by this monster and his accomplices or... to that evil enterprise by the mentors. But despite all this, nothing else was revealed, such as that in all his villainy, the first beginning took its beginning in the Yaitsky army..

Execution of Pugachev on Bolotnaya Square. (Drawing by an eyewitness to the execution of A. T. Bolotov)

On December 30, the judges in the case of E.I. Pugachev gathered in the Throne Hall of the Kremlin Palace. They heard Catherine II's manifesto on the appointment of a trial, and then the indictment in the case of Pugachev and his associates was announced. Prince A. A. Vyazemsky offered to bring Pugachev to the next court hearing. Early in the morning of December 31, he was transported under heavy escort from the casemates of the Mint to the chambers of the Kremlin Palace. At the beginning of the meeting, the judges approved the questions that Pugachev had to answer, after which he was brought into the meeting room and forced to kneel. After a formal questioning, he was taken out of the courtroom, the court made a decision: “Emelka Pugachev will be quartered, his head will be stuck on a stake, body parts will be carried to four parts of the city and placed on wheels, and then burned in those places.” The remaining defendants were divided according to the degree of their guilt into several groups for each appropriate type of execution or punishment. On Saturday, January 10, an execution was carried out on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow in front of a huge crowd of people. Pugachev behaved with dignity, ascended to the place of execution, crossed himself at the Kremlin cathedrals, bowed to four sides with the words “Forgive me, Orthodox people.” The executioner first cut off the heads of E. I. Pugachev and A. P. Perfilyev, who were sentenced to quartering; such was the wish of the empress. On the same day, M. G. Shigaev, T. I. Podurov and V. I. Tornov were hanged. I. N. Zarubin-Chika was sent for execution to Ufa, where he was quartered in early February 1775.

Sheet metal shop. Painting by Demidov serf artist P. F. Khudoyarov

Pugachev's uprising caused enormous damage to the metallurgy of the Urals. 64 of the 129 factories that existed in the Urals fully joined the uprising; the number of peasants assigned to them was 40 thousand people. The total amount of losses from the destruction and downtime of factories is estimated at 5,536,193 rubles. And although the factories were quickly restored, the uprising forced concessions to be made towards factory workers. The chief investigator in the Urals, Captain S.I. Mavrin, reported that the assigned peasants, whom he considered the leading force of the uprising, supplied the impostor with weapons and joined his troops, because the factory owners oppressed their assigned peasants, forcing the peasants to travel long distances to the factories and did not allow them engaged in arable farming and sold them food at inflated prices. Mavrin believed that drastic measures must be taken to prevent similar unrest in the future. Catherine wrote to G.A. Potemkin that Mavrin “what he says about the factory peasants is all very thorough, and I think that there is nothing else to do with them but to buy factories and, when they are state-owned, then provide the peasants with benefits.”. On May 19, 1779, a manifesto was issued about general rules the use of assigned peasants in state-owned and private enterprises, which somewhat limited factory owners in the use of peasants assigned to factories, limited the working day and increased wages.

There were no significant changes in the situation of the peasantry.

Research and collections of archival documents

Pushkin A. S. “The History of Pugachev” (censored title - “The History of the Pugachev Rebellion”)
Grot Y. K. Materials for the history of the Pugachev rebellion (Papers of Kara and Bibikov). St. Petersburg, 1862
Dubrovin N.F. Pugachev and his accomplices. An episode from the reign of Empress Catherine II. 1773-1774 Based on unpublished sources. T. 1-3. St. Petersburg, type. N. I. Skorokhodova, 1884
Pugachevism. Collection of documents.

Volume 1. From the Pugachev archive. Documents, decrees, correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1926. Volume 2. From investigative materials and official correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1929 Volume 3. From the Pugachev archive. M.-L., Sotsekgiz, 1931

Peasant War 1773-1775 in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. M., 1973
Peasant War 1773-1775 on the territory of Bashkiria. Collection of documents. Ufa, 1975
Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Chuvashia. Collection of documents. Cheboksary, 1972
Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Udmurtia. Collection of documents and materials. Izhevsk, 1974
Gorban N.V. Peasantry of Western Siberia in the Peasant War of 1773-75. // Questions of history. 1952. No. 11.
Muratov Kh. I. Peasant War 1773-1775. in Russia. M., Voenizdat, 1954

Art

Pugachev's uprising in fiction

A. S. Pushkin “The Captain's Daughter”
S. A. Yesenin “Pugachev” (poem)
S. P. Zlobin “Salavat Yulaev”
E. Fedorov “Stone Belt” (novel). Book 2 “Heirs”
V. Ya. Shishkov “Emelyan Pugachev (novel)”
V. I. Buganov “Pugachev” (biography in the series “Life of Remarkable People”)
V. I. Mashkovtsev “Golden Flower - Overcome” (historical novel). - Chelyabinsk, South Ural Book Publishing House, , .

Cinema

Pugachev () - Feature Film. Director Pavel Petrov-Bytov
Emelyan Pugachev () - historical duology: “Slaves of Freedom” and “Will Washed in Blood” directed by Alexei Saltykov
The Captain's Daughter () - a feature film based on the story of the same name by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
Russian Revolt () - a historical film based on the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin " Captain's daughter" and "The History of Pugachev"
Salavat Yulaev () - feature film. Director Yakov Protazanov

Notes

Petition of the Yaik army of the imp. Catherine II regarding the oppression of ordinary Cossacks
Petition of the Yaik Cossacks to the imp. Catherine II, 1772 January 15, 1772, text on the “Oriental Literature” website

The peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev from east to west covered territories from the Ryazan and Vladimir provinces to the cities of Shadrinsk and Troitsk in Siberia.

From north to south, the uprising covered the territories of the Yaik River and Astrakhan, Voronezh province and Kazan, the cities of Perm and Yekaterinburg.

What is Pugachevism

The main forces of the movement, which received the name Pugachevism in history, were formed at the expense of assigned, appanage, possessional, and landowner peasants. However, the Ural Cossacks acted as the support and initiators of the movement, which made it possible to organize the army like the Cossack army.

The leader of the movement, Emelyan Pugachev, was distinguished by religious tolerance, which made it possible to unite representatives of different religions under his command. The peasant wave captured the peoples living in the Volga region: Bashkirs, Mari, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Kalmyks.

The detachments of Emelyan Ivanovich were distinguished by greater discipline and organization, in contrast to his predecessors I. I. Bolotnikov and S. T. Razin. Nevertheless, the peasant uprising included unprepared participants, most of whom were not familiar with military life. This gave the movement a spontaneous character.

Among the associates of E.I. Pugachev are: Yulaev Salavat, Khlopusha, a former convict elevated to atamans. Arslanov and Beloborodov, who led the rebels in Issa and Yaik, respectively. Ovchinnikov was elected ataman, according to the vote of the Yaik Cossacks.

Reasons for Pugachev's uprising

The reasons were:

Socio-economic inequality.
Neglect of the interests of the peasantry.
Difficult living conditions.
Dependence on landowners, lack of rights to land.

The goal of the uprising was to abolish serfdom and get rid of landlord oppression. The plans of the Pugachevites included the accession of a “good king” to the throne and the provision of peasants with their own plots of land.

Stages of the Peasant War 1773-1775.

The Peasant War can be roughly divided into three stages: 1773-1774, associated with the creation of a military college, April 1774 - the first serious defeat, the third period - the war acquired a pronounced anti-serfdom direction.

Here, in the table, the main data is briefly presented.

Stage 1

In the fall, having failed in the town of Yaitsk, Emelyan Pugachev moved troops to Orenburg. A month after the start offensive operations, by October 1773, Orenburg was taken along with the fortresses adjacent to it. The army numbered fifty thousand people, which accounted for one hundred guns. While besieging Orenburg, Pugachev’s associates created a government body - a military board.

The latter dealt with the supply of troops with guns, provisions, equipment, and was responsible for the financial side of issues. Control over besieged territories and judicial proceedings were carried out by this authority until August 1774.

At this time, in the capital, Catherine II made attempts to resolve the current situation without attracting attention.

Stage 2

However, having assessed the scale of the disaster, the Empress sent Chief General A.I. to the theater of military operations. Bibikova. The troops under his command inflicted a serious defeat on the Cossack-peasant troops, defeating them in March 1774.

The rebels under the leadership of I.N. Zarubina-Chiki and Salavat Yulaev were defeated near Ufa at the end of March of the same year. A difficult time came for the troops after the defeat of the first of April and the loss of guns. So, having gathered the remnants of the troops, Emelyan Ivanovich moved to the mining areas.

The latter made it possible to fill the ranks with peasants and other people tired of the tyranny of landowners and employers.

April 1774 Having captured Kazan, Pugachev failed to consolidate his positions, which is due to the troops of Colonel I.I. Mikhelson.

Stage 3

The rebels were forced to retreat. After a series of defeats, Pugachev crossed to the right bank of the Volga, hoping to enlist the support of the Don Cossacks. Along the way, Alatyr, Saransk, Penza, and Saratov were besieged.

Having acquired a nationwide character, the uprising became increasingly violent.

A threat looms over the central regions of the state. Spontaneity and destruction within Pugachev's troops led to failure during the siege of Tsaritsyn. A further attempt to take cover behind the Volga led to defeat by troops under the leadership.

Consequences of the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev

What happened as a result of all the actions:

The Zaporozhye Sich was abolished, the Cossacks were called up for imperial service in 1775.
Decree of 1775, according to which the opening of handicraft production is available to all classes, abolition of taxes (until 1782).
Reduced taxation for the Cossacks.
Reducing the restrictions of factory peasants.
Introduction of the provincial reform of 1775
Formation of the nobility in the national outskirts.
The name Yaik River disappeared from the maps, the latter was renamed the Ural.

Questions and answers section

Here are answers to frequently asked questions.

In what year did the uprising led by E. Pugachev begin?

The uprising began in the fall of 1773.

Under which empress did the Pugachev uprising take place?

The Pugachev revolt occurred during the reign of Catherine II.

Who was one of Pugachev's closest associates?

The latter include Ivan Nikiforovich Zarubin-Chika, Ivan Naumovich Beloborodov, Ivan Gryaznov and Grigory Tumanov, Kinzya Arslanov and Salavat Yulaev.

What atrocities did Pugachev and his associates commit?

Executions, robberies, fires (whole settlements), rape, punishment in the form of skinning alive.

Who suppressed Pugachev's uprising?

Suvorov Alexander Vasilyevich is a great commander who did not lose a single battle.

What are the reasons for the defeat of Pugachev's uprising?

The defeat of the peasant revolt is associated with the following features:

with a lack of organization;
regular monitoring;
insufficient weapons;
the entry into the army of untrained people - mainly serf-owners.

When was Pugachev executed?

Execution of E.I. Pugacheva took place in Moscow on Bolotnaya Square in January 1775.

Shagaev, Padurov, Tornov were sent to the gallows, Perfilyev was quartered. Ivan Zarubin was taken to Ufa, where, according to the verdict, his head was cut off and impaled for everyone to see.

About eight people were sent to hard labor. The officials who assisted Pugachev were stripped of their powers and demoted. Representatives of the clergy were defrocked, and those who were plunged into a series of events became sextons against their will.

Results of the Pugachev uprising

Cossack detachments were renamed army units. Securing the title of nobility to Cossack officers and the opportunity to own serfs.

Expansion of provinces by merging small ones. On May 19, 1779, a manifesto was signed on reducing the working day, increasing wages assigned peasants.

Since 1769, Russia has waged a difficult but very successful war with Turkey for the possession of the Black Sea region. However, Russia itself was very uneasy; at that time a rebellion began, which became known as the “Pugachev rebellion.” Many circumstances prepared the ground for such a rebellion, namely:

1. The discontent of the Volga peoples with national and religious oppression, as well as the arbitrariness of the tsarist authorities, intensified. All sorts of obstacles were created for traditional folk religion and in the activities of imams, mullahs, mosques and madrassas, and part of the indigenous population was imprudently subjected to forced Christianization. In the Southern Urals, on lands bought for next to nothing from the Bashkirs, entrepreneurs built metallurgical plants and hired Bashkirs for pennies to do auxiliary work. Salt mines, river and lake banks, forest dachas and pastures were taken away from the indigenous population. Huge tracts of impenetrable forest were rapaciously cut down or burned for coal production.

2. In the second half of the 18th century, serfdom oppression of the peasants intensified. After the death of Tsar Peter, a long period of “women’s rule” began in Russia, and the empresses distributed hundreds of thousands of state peasants to the landowners, including their many favorites. As a result, every second peasant in Great Russia became a serf. In an effort to increase the profitability of their estates, landowners increased the size of the corvee, and their rights became unlimited. They could flog a person to death, buy, sell, exchange, send him to become a soldier. In addition, life was influenced by the powerful moral factor of class injustice. The fact is that on February 18, 1762, Emperor Peter III adopted a decree on the freedom of the nobility, which gave the ruling class the right to choose either to serve the state or to resign and go to their estates. Since ancient times, the people, in their different classes, had a firm conviction that each class, to the best of its strength and ability, serves the state in the name of its prosperity and the people's good. Boyars and nobles serve in the army and institutions, peasants work on the land, in their estates and in noble estates, workers and craftsmen - in workshops, factories, Cossacks - on the border. And here the whole class was given the right to sit back, lie on sofas for years, drink, debauch and eat free bread. It was this inactivity, uselessness, idleness and depraved life of the rich nobles that especially irritated and oppressed the working peasantry. The matter was aggravated by the fact that retired nobles began to spend most of their lives on their estates. Previously, they spent most of their lives and time in the service, and the estates were actually ruled by elders from their own local peasants. The nobles retired after 25 years of service, in mature years, often sick and wounded, wise from many years of service, knowledge and worldly experience. Now young and healthy people of both sexes literally languished and toiled from idleness, inventing new, often depraved, entertainments for themselves that required more and more money. In fits of unbridled greed, many landowners took the land from the peasants, forcing them to work in corvee all week. The peasants understood with their guts and minds that the ruling circles, freeing themselves from service and labor, were increasingly tightening the bonds of serfdom and oppressing the working but powerless peasantry. Therefore, they sought to restore the fair, in their opinion, past way of life, to force the presumptuous nobles to serve the Fatherland.

3. There was also great dissatisfaction among the mining workers with hard, backbreaking labor and poor living conditions. Serfs were assigned to state factories. Their work at the factory was counted as corvee work. These peasants had to receive food from their subsidiary plots. Those assigned to the labor force were forced to work in factories for up to 260 days a year, leaving little time for them to work on their farmsteads. Their farms became poor and impoverished, and people lived in extreme poverty. In the 40s, “merchant” owners were also allowed to “export all kinds of people” to Ural factories. By the 60s of the 18th century, the factory owner Tverdyshev alone acquired over 6 thousand peasants for his factories.

The serf breeders forced the slaves to work out a “lesson” not only for themselves, but also for the dead, sick, runaway peasants, for the elderly and children. In a word, labor obligations increased many times over and people could not get out of lifelong hard bondage. Along with the assigned and serfs, laborers, artisans and runaways (“skhodtsy”) people worked in the workshops. For each runaway 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 were famous for their love of freedom, steadfastness in the old faith and in the traditions bequeathed by their ancestors. After the defeat of the Bulavinsky uprising, Peter I tried to limit Cossack liberties on Yaik, disperse the Old Believers and shave the Cossacks' beards, and received corresponding protest and opposition that lasted several decades, outlived the emperor himself, and later gave rise to powerful uprisings. Since 1717, Yaik atamans were no longer elected, but began to be appointed, and continuous complaints and denunciations were sent to St. Petersburg against the atamans appointed by the tsar. Inspection commissions were appointed from St. Petersburg, which, with varying degrees of success, partly quelled discontent, and partly, due to the corruption of the commissars themselves, aggravated it. The confrontation between state power and the Yaitsky army in 1717-1760 developed into protracted conflict, during which the Yaik Cossacks were divided into “agreeing” atamans and foremen and “disagreeing” ordinary military Cossacks. The cup of patience was filled with the following incident. Since 1752, the Yaik army, after a long struggle with the Guryev merchant clan, received rich fisheries in the lower reaches of the Yaik. Ataman Borodin and his elders used the profitable trade to enrich themselves. The Cossacks wrote complaints, but they were not allowed to proceed. In 1763, the Cossacks sent a complaint with the walkers. Ataman Borodin was removed from his post, but the walker - military foreman 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 led by 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 activities by flogging seven elected respected Cossacks, shaved their beards and sent them under escort to Orenburg. This greatly outraged the freedom-loving villagers. On January 12, the authoritative Cossacks Perfilyev and Shagaev gathered the Circle and a huge mass of Cossacks went to the house where the cruel general was located. Old men, women and a priest walked ahead with icons; they carried a petition, sang psalms and wanted to peacefully achieve a solution to controversial but important issues. But they were met by soldiers with guns and gunners with cannons. When the Cossack masses entered the square in front of the Military Hut, Baron von Traubenberg ordered cannons and rifles to open fire. As a result of the dagger fire, more than 100 people died, some rushed to flee, but most of the Cossacks, despising death, rushed to the guns and killed and strangled the gunners with their bare hands. The guns were deployed and the punitive soldiers were shot at point-blank range. General Traubenberg was hacked to pieces with swords, Captain Durnovo was beaten, the chieftain and foremen were hanged. A new chieftain, elders and the Circle were immediately elected. But the punitive detachment, led by General Freiman, who arrived from Orenburg, abolished new government, and then executed the decision that arrived from St. Petersburg in the case of the rebel Cossacks. All participants were flogged, in addition, 16 Cossacks had their nostrils torn out, the mark “thief” was burned on their faces and sent to hard labor in Siberia, 38 Cossacks with their families were deported to Siberia, 25 were sent to become soldiers. A huge indemnity was imposed on the rest - 36,765 rubles. But the brutal reprisal did not humble the Yaik Cossacks; they only hid their anger and malice and waited for the moment to strike back.

5. Some historians do not deny the “Crimean-Turkish trace” in Pugachev’s events; this is also indicated by some facts from Pugachev’s biography. But Emelyan himself did not admit his connection with the Turks and Crimeans, even under torture.

All this gave rise to acute dissatisfaction with the authorities and encouraged them to look for a way out in active protest and resistance. Only instigators and leaders of the movement were needed. The instigators appeared in the person of the Yaik Cossacks, and the leader of the powerful Cossack peasant uprising became Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev.

Rice. 1. Emelyan Pugachev

Pugachev was born on the Don, in 1742 in the village of Zimoveyskaya, the same one where the rebellious ataman S.T. grew up. Razin. His father came from simple Cossacks. Until the age of 17, Emelya lived with his father’s family, doing housework, and after his resignation he took his place in the regiment. At the age of 19 he got married, and soon went with a regiment on a campaign to Poland and Prussia and participated in the Seven Years' War. For his quickness and quickness of mind, he was appointed adjutant to regiment commander I.F. Denisova. In 1768, he went to war with Turkey and received the rank of cornet for his distinction in the capture of the Bendery fortress. But a serious illness forced him to leave the army in 1771, the report says: “... and his chest and legs rotted.” Pugachev tries to resign due to illness, but is refused. In December 1771, he secretly fled to the Terek. Before the Terek ataman Pavel Tatarnikov, he introduces himself as a voluntary settler and is assigned to the village of Ishchorskaya, where he is soon elected village ataman. The Cossacks of the villages of Ischorskaya, Naurskaya and Golyugaevskaya decide to send him to St. Petersburg to the Military College with a request for an increase in salary and provisions. Having received 20 rubles of money and a village stamp, he leaves for a light village (business trip). However, in St. Petersburg he is arrested and put in a guardhouse. But together with the guard soldier, he escapes from custody and comes to his native place. There he is arrested again and escorted to Cherkassk. But with the help of a colleague from the Seven Years' War, he escapes again and hides in Ukraine. With a group of local residents, he goes to Kuban to join the Nekrasov Cossacks. In November 1772, he arrived in the Yaitsky town and personally saw the tension and anxiety in which the Yaitsky 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 Old Believer Cossack D.I. Pyankov, Emelyan pretends to be Emperor Peter III Fedorovich, and he shared the incredible with his friends. But following a denunciation, Pugachev was arrested, beaten with batogs, shackled and sent to Simbirsk, then to Kazan. But he flees from there too and wanders around the Don, the Urals and other regions. Just a real Cossack Rambo or ninja. Long wanderings embittered him and taught him a lot. He observed with his own eyes the difficult life of the oppressed people, and a thought arose in the violent Cossack head to help the powerless people gain the desired freedom and live with the whole world in the Cossack way, widely, freely and in great prosperity. Upon his next arrival in the Urals, he already appeared before the Cossacks as “Sovereign Peter III Fedorovich,” and under his name began to publish manifestos promising broad freedoms and material benefits to all those dissatisfied. Written in an illiterate, but lively, imaginative and accessible language, Pugachev’s manifestos were, as A.S. rightly put it. Pushkin, "an amazing example of folk eloquence." For many years, the legend of the miraculous salvation of Emperor Peter III had been walking across the vast expanses of Mother Russia, and there were dozens of such impostors at that time, but Pugachev turned out to be the most extraordinary and successful. And the people supported the impostor. Of course, he admitted to his closest associates D. Karavaev, M. Shigaev, I. Zarubin, I. Ushakov, D. Lysov, I. Pochitalin that he adopted the name of the Tsar to influence ordinary people, so it was easier to rouse them to revolt, and he himself is a simple Cossack. But the Yaik Cossacks were in dire need of an authoritative and skillful leader, under whose banner and leadership they would fight the selfish and self-willed 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 Tolkachev brothers’ farm, 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, he was accosted by dozens of ordinary people: Russians and Tatars, Kalmyks and Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. The detachment reached a strength of 200 people and approached the Yaitsky town. The leader of the rebels sent a threatening decree to the capital of the troops on voluntary surrender, but was refused. Having failed to take the town by storm, the rebels went up the Yaik, took the Gnilovsky outpost and convened the Cossack Military Circle. Andrei Ovchinnikov was elected military ataman, Dmitry Lysov as colonel, Andrei Vitoshnov as captain, and centurions and cornets were also elected here. Moving up the Yaik, the rebels occupied the outposts of Genvartsovsky, Rubezhny, Kirsanovsky, and Irtek without a fight. The Iletsk town tried to resist, but Ataman Ovchinnikov came there with a manifesto and a garrison of 300 people with 12 guns stopped resisting and greeted “Tsar Peter” with bread and salt. The dissatisfied crowds joined the rebels, and, as A.S. Pushkin would later say, “the Russian revolt began, senseless and merciless.”

Rice. 2. Surrender of the fortress to Pugachev

Orenburg Governor Reinsdorp ordered Brigadier Bilov with a detachment of 400 people and 6 guns to move towards the rebels to the rescue of Yaitsky town. However, a large detachment of rebels approached the Rassypnaya fortress and on September 24 the garrison surrendered without a fight. On September 27, the Pugachevites approached the Tatishchev fortress. A large fortification on the way to Orenburg had a garrison of up to 1000 soldiers with 13 guns. In addition, there was a detachment of Brigadier Bilov in the fortress. The besieged repelled the first attack. As part of Bilov’s detachment, 150 Orenburg Cossacks fought under the centurion Timofey Padurov, who were sent to intercept the rebels moving around the fortress. To the surprise of the Tatishchevskaya garrison, T. Padurov’s detachment openly went over to Pugachev’s side. This undermined the strength of the defenders. The rebels set fire to the wooden walls, rushed to attack and broke into the fortress. The soldiers hardly resisted; the Cossacks went over to the side of the impostor. The officers were brutally dealt with: Bilov’s head was cut off, the skin of the commandant Colonel Elagin was torn off, the body of the obese officer was used to treat wounds, the fat was cut off and the wounds were lubricated. Elagin’s wife was hacked to death, Pugachev took his beautiful daughter as his concubine, and later, having amused himself with the example of Stenka Razin, he killed her along with her seven-year-old brother.

Unlike all other Orenburg Cossacks, near the Tatishchevskaya fortress there was almost the only case of 150 Orenburg Cossacks voluntarily going over to the side of the rebels. What made centurion T. Padurov change his oath, surrender to the thieving 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 plot 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 lived in St. Petersburg for several years 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. Having failed to achieve the truth, the centurion in the spring of 1772 left Chelyaba for Orenburg for line service, where he stayed with the detachment until September 1773. At the most crucial moment of the battle for the Tatishchev fortress, he and his detachment went over to the side of the rebels, thereby helping to take the fortress and deal with its defenders. Apparently, Padurov had not forgotten his previous grievances; he had an aversion to the foreign German queen, her favorites and the magnificent entourage that he observed in St. Petersburg. He truly believed in Pugachev’s high mission, and with his help he wanted to overthrow the hated queen. Let us note that the tsarist aspirations of the Cossacks, their attempts to place their own Cossack king on the throne, were repeated many times in Russian history of the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, from the moment the reign of the Rurik dynasty ended and with the beginning of the accession of the new Romanov clan, “kings and princes” constantly emerged from the Cossack environment, contenders for the Moscow crown. Emelyan himself played the role of the king well, forcing all his comrades, as well as captured royal officers and nobles, to play along with him, swear allegiance, and kiss his hand.

Those who disagreed were immediately brutally punished - executed, hanged, tortured. These facts confirm the version of historians about the stubborn struggle of the Cossacks for their Cossack-Russian-Horde dynasty. The arrival of the intelligent, active and authoritative Cossack T. Padurov in the Pugachev camp turned out to be a great success. After all, this centurion knew court life well and could tell in vivid colors ordinary people about the life and morals of the queen, to debunk her depraved, lustful and thieving entourage, to give visible truthfulness and real colors to all legends and versions about the royal origin of Pugachev. Pugachev highly appreciated Padurov, promoted him to colonel, appointed him to be with the “imperial person” and act as Secretary of State. Together with the former corporal Beloborodov and the cornet of the Etkul village Shundeev, he conducted staff work and compiled “royal manifestos and decrees.” But not only. With a small detachment of Cossacks, he rode out to meet the punitive detachment of Colonel Chernyshov, who had gotten lost in the steppe. Presenting him with 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 down their guns and surrendered, 30 officers were hanged. A large detachment of Major General V.A. was sent to defeat the rebels in Orenburg. Kara, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief, totaled more than 1,500 soldiers with 5 guns. With the detachment there were a hundred mounted Bashkirs of the batyr Salavat Yulaev. 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, and from that moment the Bashkirs took an active part in the uprising. To attract them, Pugachev threw populist slogans at the national masses: about expelling Russians from Bashkiria, about destroying all fortresses and factories, about transferring all land into the hands of the Bashkir people. These were false promises, divorced from life, because it is impossible to reverse the movement of progress, but they appealed to the indigenous population. The approach of new Cossack, Bashkir and workers’ detachments near Orenburg strengthened Pugachev’s army. During the six-month siege of Orenburg, the leaders of the uprising paid special attention to the training of troops. Being an experienced military 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; ordinary people, Bashkirs and peasants were armed with whatever they could find. Near Orenburg, the rebel army grew to 30 thousand people with 100 guns and 600 gunners. At the same time, Pugachev carried out trials and reprisals against prisoners and shed rivers of blood.

Rice. 3. Pugachev's court

But all attacks to capture 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, and 70 cannons fired from the walls. The defeated General Kar fled to Moscow and caused great panic there. Anxiety also gripped St. Petersburg. Catherine demanded an early conclusion of peace with the Turks and appointed the energetic and talented General A.I. as the new commander-in-chief. Bibikova, and established a reward of 10 thousand rubles for Pugachev’s head. But the far-sighted and intelligent General Bibikov told the Tsarina: “It’s not Pugachev that is important, it’s the general indignation that 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 Iset province to capture Chelyabinsk. Along the way, he captured fortresses, outposts and villages; he was joined by Cossacks and soldiers of the Sterlitamak pier, Tabynsky town, Bogoyavlensky plant, the villages of Kundravinskaya, Koelskaya, Verkhneuvelskaya, Chebarkulskaya and other settlements. The detachment of the Pugachev colonel grew to 6 thousand people. The rebels moved to the Chelyabinsk fortress. The governor of the Iset province A.P. Verevkin took decisive measures to strengthen the fortress. In December 1773, he ordered the gathering of 1,300 “temporary Cossacks” in the district and the garrison of Chelyaba grew to 2,000 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 led by the ataman of the Chelyabinsk Cossacks Ivan Urzhumtsev and the cornet Naum Nevzorov. The Cossacks, under the leadership of Nevzorov, captured the cannons standing near the voivode's house and opened fire on the soldiers of the garrison. The Cossacks burst into the governor’s house and inflicted cruel reprisals on him, beating him half to death. But, carried away by reprisals against the hated officers, the rebels left the guns without proper supervision. Second Lieutenant Pushkarev with the Tobolsk company and gunners repulsed them and opened fire on the rebels. In the battle, Ataman Urzhumtsev was killed, and Nevzorov and the Cossacks left the city. On January 8, Ivan Gryaznov with his troops approached the fortress and stormed it twice, but the garrison bravely and skillfully held the defense. The attackers suffered heavy losses from the fortress artillery. Reinforcements from Second Major Fadeev and part of the Siberian Corps of General Dekolong broke through to the besieged. Gryaznov lifted the siege and went to Chebarkul, but after receiving reinforcements he again occupied the village of Pershino near Chelyabinsk. On February 1, in the Pershino area, a battle between Dekolong’s detachment and the rebels took place. Having failed to achieve success, 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 the all-consuming fire of a fratricidal war. But many fortresses stubbornly did not give up. The garrison of the Yaitsk fortress, not agreeing to any promises of the Pugachevites, continued to resist. The rebel commanders decided: if the fortress was taken, they would hang not only the officers, but also their families. The places where this or that person would hang were outlined. The wife and five-year-old son of Captain Krylov, the future fabulist Ivan Krylov, were listed there. As in any civil war, mutual hatred was so great that on both sides, everyone who could wear it took part in the battles. The opposing forces included not only fellow countrymen and neighbors, but also close relatives. Father went against son, brother against brother. Old-timers of the Yaitsky town recounted a characteristic scene. From the ramparts of the fortress, the younger brother shouted to his older brother approaching him with a crowd of rebels: “Dear brother, don’t come near! I’ll kill you.” And the brother from the stairs answered him: “I’ll give it to you, I’ll kill you! Wait, I’ll climb onto the rampart, I’ll pull your forelock, you won’t frighten your older brother in the future.” And the younger brother fired at him from the squeak and the older brother rolled into the ditch. The brothers' surname, Gorbunov, has also been preserved. Terrible confusion reigned in the rebel territory. Gangs of bandit robbers became more active. On a large scale, they practiced kidnapping people from the border strip into captivity among nomads. The commanders of government troops, who tried by all means to extinguish Pugachev’s uprising, were often forced to get involved in battles with these predators along with the rebels. The commander of one of these 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 released prisoners announced to the lieutenant that they also sympathized with Pugachev.

The protracted siege of Orenburg and the Yaitsky town allowed the tsarist governors to bring large forces of the regular army and noble militias of Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, and Sviyazhsk to the city. On March 22, the rebels suffered a brutal defeat from government troops at the Tatishchevskaya fortress. The defeat had a depressing effect on many of them. Cornet Borodin tried to capture Pugachev and hand him over to the authorities, but was unsuccessful. Pugachev's Colonel Mussa Aliyev captured and extradited the prominent rebel Khlopusha. On April 1, when leaving the Sakmarsky town to the Yaitsky town, Pugachev’s army of many thousands 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 by a captured Polish Confederate in Bugulma. New Commander-in-Chief Prince F.F. Shcherbatov concentrated large military forces and sought to attract them to fight the rebels indigenous people. 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 regime. 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 convened a meeting of Bashkir elders there, promised to return their 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 greeted with great joy the promises and promises of the “hopeful sovereign” and 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, troops of the Siberian Corps of General Delong appeared in front of the fortress. The rebels attacked them with all their might, but could not withstand the powerful onslaught of brave and loyal soldiers, they wavered and fled, losing up to 4 thousand killed, 9 guns and the entire convoy.

Rice. 4. Battle at the Trinity Fortress

With the remnants of the army, Pugachev plundered the Nizhneuvel, Kichiginsky and Koelsky fortifications, and went through Varlamovo and Kundravy to the Zlatoust plant. However, near Kundravy, the rebels had a counter battle with a detachment of I.I. Mikhelson 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 Satkin factories and united with S. Yulaev’s detachment. The young horseman poet with a detachment of about 3,000 people was active in the mining and industrial zone of the Southern Urals. He managed to capture several mining factories, Simsky, Yuryuzansky, Ust-Katavsky and others, destroyed and burned them. In total, during the uprising, 69 factories in the Urals were partially or completely destroyed, 43 factories did not participate in the insurrectionary movement at all, the rest created self-defense units and defended their enterprises, or paid off the rebels. Therefore, in the 70s of the 18th century, industrial production throughout the Urals decreased sharply. In June 1774, the detachments of Pugachev and S. Yulaev united and besieged the Osa fortress. After a heavy battle, the fortress surrendered, and the road to Kazan was opened for Pugachev, his army was quickly replenished with volunteers. With 20 thousand rebels, he attacked the city from four sides. On July 12, the rebels broke into the city, but the Kremlin survived. The tireless, energetic and skillful Mikhelson approached the city and a field battle unfolded near the city. The defeated Pugachevites, numbering about 400 people, crossed 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 final stage of his struggle began. Huge masses of peasants and Volga peoples stirred up and rose to fight for imaginary and real freedom. The peasants, having received Pugachev’s manifesto, killed landowners, hanged clerks, and burned their master’s estates. Pugachev’s detachment turned south, to the Don. The Volga region cities surrendered to Pugachev without a fight, Alatyr, Saransk, Penza, Petrovsk, Saratov fell... The offensive progressed rapidly. They took cities and villages, carried out trials and reprisals against the masters, freed convicts, confiscated the property of the nobles, distributed bread to the hungry, took away weapons and ammunition, recruited volunteers into the Cossacks and left, leaving behind flames and ashes. On August 21, 1774, the rebels approached Tsaritsyn, with the tireless Mikhelson following on their heels. The assault on the fortress city failed. On August 24, Mikhelson overtook Pugachev at Black Yar. The battle ended in complete defeat, 2 thousand rebels were killed, 6 thousand were captured. With a detachment of two hundred rebels, the leader galloped off to the Trans-Volga steppes. But the days of the rebellious chieftain were numbered. The active and talented General Pyotr Panin was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops operating against the rebels, and in the southern sector all forces were subordinated to A.V. Suvorov. And what is very important, Pugachev was not supported by the Don. This circumstance deserves special mention. The Don was ruled by a Council of Elders of 15-20 people and an ataman. The circle met annually on January 1 and held elections for all elders except the ataman. Since 1718, Tsar Peter I introduced the appointment of atamans (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 Don Ataman, and after some time he was appointed military Ataman for life. But the authorities spoiled him, and under him the uncontrolled reign of power and money began. In 1755, for many of the ataman’s services, he was awarded a major general, and in 1759, for his services in the Seven Years’ War, he was also a privy adviser with a presence in the person of the empress, and his son Stepan Efremov was appointed ataman on the Don. Thus, by the highest order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, power on the Don became hereditary and uncontrollable. From that time on, the ataman family crossed all moral boundaries in its acquisitiveness, and in retaliation an avalanche of complaints fell upon them. Since 1764, based on complaints from the Cossacks, Catherine demanded from Ataman Efremov a report on income, land and other possessions, his and the elders’ trades. The report did not satisfy her and, on her instructions, a commission on the economic situation on the Don worked. But the commission did not work shaky or sluggishly. In 1766, land surveying was carried out and illegally occupied yurts were taken away. In 1772, the commission finally gave a conclusion about the abuses of Ataman Stepan Efremov, he was arrested and sent to St. Petersburg. This matter, on the eve of Pugachev’s rebellion, took a political turn, especially since Ataman Stepan Efremov had personal services to the empress. In 1762, being at the head of a 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 into the case of Ataman Efremov defused the situation on the Don and the Don Cossacks were practically not involved in the Pugachev rebellion. Moreover, the Don regiments took an active part in suppressing the rebellion, capturing Pugachev and pacifying the rebellious areas over the next few years. If the empress had not condemned the thieving ataman, Pugachev, without a doubt, would have found support on the Don and the scope of the Pugachev rebellion would have been completely different.

Prominent associates of Pugachev also understood the hopelessness of further continuing the rebellion. His comrades - the Cossacks Tvorogov, Chumakov, Zheleznov, Fedulyev and Burnov on September 12 captured and tied up Pugachev. On September 15, he was taken to the Yaitsky town, at the same time Lieutenant General A.V. arrived there. Suvorov. During interrogation, the future generalissimo marveled at the sound reasoning and military talents of the “villain.” In a special cage, 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 it with execution by beheading. On January 10, on Bolotnaya Square, Pugachev ascended the scaffold, bowed on four sides, quietly said: “Forgive me, Orthodox people,” and laid his unfortunate head on the block, which the ax instantly cut off. Here, four of his closest associates were executed by hanging: Perfilyev, Shigaev, Padurov and Tornov.

Rice. 7 Execution of Pugachev

And yet the uprising was not senseless, 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 relaxations. The breeders were ordered to “double payments for work and not force them to work beyond the established standards.” Religious persecution was stopped in national regions, mosques were allowed to be built, and taxes were stopped being taken from them. But the vindictive Empress Catherine II, noting the loyalty of the Orenburg Cossacks, was indignant at the Yaitskys. The empress wanted to abolish the Yaik army altogether, but then, at Potemkin’s request, she forgave it. In order to consign the rebellion to complete oblivion, the army was renamed Ural, the Yaik River - Ural, Yait Fortress - Uralsk, etc. Catherine II abolished the military circle and elected administration. The choice of atamans and elders finally passed to the government. All the guns were taken away from the army and they were forbidden to have them in the future. The ban was lifted only 140 years later with the outbreak of the World War. However, the Yaitsk army was still lucky. The Volga Cossacks, also involved in the riot, were resettled to North Caucasus, and the Zaporozhye Sich was completely liquidated. After the riot for at least ten years, the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks were armed only with edged weapons, and received squeaks and ammunition only when there was a threat of a clash. The revenge of the victors 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, Chuvashs were executed without any trial, sometimes simply at the whim of the punishers. In Pushkin’s papers on the history of the Pugachev rebellion there is a note that Lieutenant Derzhavin ordered the hanging of two rebels “out of poetic curiosity.” At the same time, the Cossacks who remained loyal to the empress were generously rewarded.

Thus, in the 17th-18th centuries, the type of Cossack finally emerged - a universal warrior, equally capable of participating in sea and river raids, fighting on land both on horseback and on foot, with excellent knowledge of artillery, fortification, siege, mine and demolition. . But the main type of military action before was sea and river raids. The Cossacks became predominantly mounted later under Peter I, after the ban on going to sea in 1695. At their core, the Cossacks are a caste of warriors, kshatriyas (in India - a caste of warriors and kings), who for many centuries defended the Orthodox faith and the Russian land. Thanks to the exploits of the Cossacks, Rus' became a powerful empire: Ermak presented Ivan the Terrible with the Khanate of Siberia. Siberian and Far Eastern lands along the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur rivers, also Chukotka, Kamchatka, middle Asia The Caucasus was annexed largely thanks to the military valor of the Cossacks. Ukraine was reunited with Russia Cossack chieftain(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 noteworthy). The Dnieper Cossacks rebelled a lot and stubbornly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. To a large extent, this was explained by the fact that the ancestors of the Cossacks were ideologically raised in the Horde on the laws of Yasa of Genghis Khan, according to which only a Genghisid could be a real king, i.e. descendant of Genghis Khan. All other rulers, including the Rurikovichs, Gediminovichs, Piasts, Jagiellons, Romanovs 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 during the strife and struggle for power hundreds of Genghisids were destroyed, including by Cossack sabers, the Genghisids also lost their Cossack reverence. One should not discount the simple desire to “show off”, to take advantage of the weakness of the authorities and take legitimate and rich spoils during the unrest. The papal ambassador to the Sich, Father Pearling, who worked a lot and successfully to direct the warlike ardor of the Cossacks to the lands of the heretics of the Muscovites and Ottomans, wrote about this in his memoirs: “The Cossacks wrote their history with a saber, and not on the pages of ancient books, but on This pen left its bloody mark on the battlefields. It was common practice 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 real or imaginary rights belonged to the hero of the moment. One thing was important for them - that they should get good prey. Was it possible to compare the miserable Danube principalities with the boundless plains of the Russian land, full of fabulous riches?

However, with late XVIII centuries and until the October Revolution, the Cossacks unconditionally and diligently played the role of defenders of Russian statehood and the support of the tsarist power, even receiving from the revolutionaries the nickname “tsarist satraps.” By some miracle, the alien German queen and her outstanding nobles, through 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” kings, and Russia is a real empire, in some places "more abruptly" than the Horde. This metamorphosis in the consciousness of the Cossacks, which occurred at the end of the 18th century, has in fact been little explored and studied by Cossack historians and writers. But there is an indisputable fact: from the end of the 18th century until the October Revolution, the Cossack riots disappeared as if by hand, and the bloodiest, longest and most famous rebellion in the history of Russia, the “Cossack revolt,” suffocated.

Materials used:
Mamonov V.F. and others. History of the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, 1992.
Shibanov N.S. Orenburg Cossacks of the 18th-19th centuries. Chelyabinsk, 2003.
Gordeev A.A. History of the Cossacks.

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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 the Urals, peasant uprisings were celebrated, which continued until 1764.

During the plague epidemic that occurred in 1771, a peasant uprising broke out in Moscow. In the same year, the Yaitsky Cossacks also rebelled. This was a kind of prelude to the start of a large-scale Peasant War led by Emelyan Pugachev. In 1773 in the Ural Cossack army a man appeared posing as Peter III.

The impostor was Emelyan Pugachev, Don Cossack. He was an extraordinary man and, thanks to his leadership abilities, quickly gained popularity among the Cossacks. After the Tsar’s manifesto of September 17, 1773, Emelyan Pugachev’s detachment moves to Yaitsk.

Realizing that it would not be possible to take the city, he moved higher up the river, and as he moved, his detachment grew. Soon the number of rebel troops amounted to two and a half thousand people. Pugachev returns to Yaitsk and besieges the city.

He begins to actively engage in propaganda activities, and the number of his squad continues to grow. The tsarist troops sent to help Yaitsk were defeated on the outskirts of the city. The uprising developed into a real peasant war.

Emelyan’s troops grew exponentially, and working people from all over the Urals flocked to his command. By February, a huge number of serfs had gone over to the side of the rebel. In 1774, Pugachev's associates captured Ufa. In the Volga region, as in the Urals, things were not calm. The peasant war covered vast territories.

During the Peasant War, Russia fought 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 for Kazan took place. Pugachev managed to take the city, but due to the onslaught of the regular army, he had to leave it.

He moved along the right bank of the Volga to the West from the city, in a hurry to the Don. Along the way, Emelyan met almost no resistance, occupying the Volga cities one after another. In August, near the city of Tsaritsyn, troops overtook the rebels and defeated them. After this, a conspiracy matured among the Cossacks, and they handed Pugachev over to the authorities. Two months later, after interrogations, Emelyan was executed. It is worth noting that big role in the defeat of Pugachev, played.

The history of the Pugachev uprising became a bright and sad event in the Russian state. Before him, the riots that took place various reasons, in most cases ended in failure (only in the 20th century were these statistics broken, first February revolution, then ). The uprising of Emelyan Pugachev in the second half of the 18th century influenced the entire subsequent history of the country and forced the empress to reconsider many of her views.

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Prerequisites for the start of the riot

Russia in the second half of the 18th century was a growing power that swept away all enemies and enemies from its path, constantly expanded, grew stronger and richer. However, if in foreign policy the authorities succeeded in almost everything (at that time the country occupied a leading position in world diplomacy, second only perhaps to Great Britain), internal life was quite tense.

Representatives of the elite grew richer year by year, buying up objects of art, spending crazy amounts of money on celebrations and luxury, while disregarding their subjects, while there were frequent cases of mass starvation among ordinary serfs. The remnants of the serf system were still strong, and general level social security was strikingly different from that of Europe.

It is not surprising that in a country waging constant wars, social tension grew on a number of issues, dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities, which sooner or later had to find a way out in the form of an uprising.

The uprising of Emelyan Pugachev covered the period from 1773 to 1775 and was remembered for a number of remarkable moments. The main reasons for Pugachev's uprising:

the huge extent of communications and the low efficiency of government administration of the country. Due to the vast expanses of the state, it was not always possible to timely and effectively control the activities of local authorities, to prevent arbitrariness against ordinary people and violation of imperial laws;
When a riot or other troubles occurred, the speed of reaction of the authorities was quite long and gave a fair amount of time to the instigators of riots and uprisings. More than once, the large extent of territories in the history of the state had a positive effect on the outcome of wars during foreign invasions; during the Pugachev uprising, this factor became one of the decisive negative aspects;
ubiquitous abuse of local power in the country by officials at various levels. Considering the socio-political structure Russian Empire, and the fact that the absolute majority of the population did not have practically any rights, various types of abuses spread among officials;
civil courts in the country have completely discredited themselves lawlessness towards the lower classes;
landowners and nobles disposed of their peasants as property, losing them at cards, separating families when they were sold, and subjecting them to torture. All this caused righteous indignation among the people;
employees and officials largely were not interested in improving the governance of the country, but only used the power given to them and increased their own capital;
at the social level, an increase in lack of rights led to an increase in mistrust between classes and, accordingly, the emergence of struggle and tension between them;
The elite of the state was represented by the clergy, nobility and burghers. These classes possessed not only unlimited power, but also almost all the wealth of the country, and mercilessly exploited the rest of the people. Simple peasants worked for the master five days a week, fulfilling their duty, and only worked for themselves the remaining two days. Every 3-5 years, a massive famine occurred in the country, causing the death of thousands of people.

It is necessary to take into account the state of the country during this period. Russia was waging a fierce war with Turkey and could not dispatch any large forces to suppress the uprising. Moreover, in St. Petersburg at first they did not attach of great importance to a small group of rebels and did not consider them a big threat.

All these reasons contributed to the growth of mass discontent and forced the people to rebel against the arbitrariness of power. Before Pugachev's uprising, riots broke out in the country, but the authorities always managed to quickly suppress all unrest. However, this rebellion stood out from the general mass by the coverage of the territory, the number of rebels, and the efforts made by the authorities to suppress it (which is only worth the recall of the best commander of the empire, A.V. Suvorov, to suppress the rebellion).

How events developed

In historiography, the uprising is not called a rebellion, but a peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev, which is not entirely true, since the Yaik Cossacks took part in the rebellion, the peasantry was involved in auxiliary forces and provided the rebels with supplies and fodder. The driving force and main force of the popular movement were immigrants from the central part of the country, granted many rights. Until a certain time, the Cossacks could freely mine and sell salt and wear beards during army service.

Over time, these privileges began to be actively infringed upon by local authorities - the extraction and private sale of salt was prohibited (a complete state monopoly on this type of activity was declared), the formation of cavalry regiments began according to the European model, which entailed the introduction of a uniform uniform and the abandonment of beards. All this resulted in a series of small uprisings in Cossack towns, which were subsequently suppressed by the authorities. Some of the Cossacks were killed, others were exiled to Siberia, the rest were sworn in again. However, this did not cool the ardor of the proud Cossacks, who began to prepare an uprising and look for a suitable leader.

Such a person was soon found and led the riot. His name was Emelyan Pugachev, he himself was from the Don Cossacks. Taking advantage of the opportune moment, after a series palace coups, this character began to call himself the miraculously surviving Emperor Peter the Third, which allowed him to gain the support of a large number of supporters during the uprising.

How Pugachev's uprising took place briefly. The movement of the army under the leadership of Emelyan Pugachev began with a campaign against the Budarinsky outpost, which was a poorly fortified settlement with a small garrison. The experienced Cossacks were opposed by a few detachments of government troops who could not provide worthy resistance. The fort fell, and this fact gave significant popularity to the new impostor among the peasantry and small peoples of the Urals and Volga region. The revolt began to quickly spread throughout the Urals, Orenburg province, Prikamye, Bashkiria and Tatarstan.

Attention! Pugachev promised to fulfill all the demands of the strata and nationalities that joined him, which attracted a large number of volunteers to the side of the rebels.

The ranks of the Cossacks began to quickly swell with detachments of small nations and oppressed Ural peasants. The number of riot participants grew like a snowball, and between September 1772 and March 1773 the army increased to several thousand well-armed and trained people. Local authorities tried to make attempts to neutralize the rioters, but the scarcity of resources and the small number of government troops did not allow effective counteraction.

The authorities only had enough strength to hold fortresses and outposts, but the rebels captured them one by one and expanded the territorial zone of their influence.

How did the riot end?

Only from the moment when the Pugachev rebellion covered a vast territory did the Empress order that sufficiently large forces, led by Count Panin, be sent to suppress it. The decisive battle took place near Kazan, one of largest cities Empire in 1774. The rebel troops were defeated, and Pugachev had to flee. After some time, he managed to gather another army large enough to resist government troops, but the result was disappointing for the rebels. The authorities managed to suppress the Pugachev rebellion, and the rebels suffered another defeat.

Pugachev was transported to Moscow, where, after an investigation, he was found guilty and executed.

The reasons for the defeat of the uprising were as follows:

lack of skillful tactical planning. The Cossacks fought in the same way as their ancestors, obeying more their spirit, rather than strict discipline and strict submission to their superiors;
despite the fact that Pugachevism spread widely across Russian territory, not the entire population of the subject provinces supported the rebels, the riot did not acquire scale, indeed, people's war . This is eloquently evidenced by the losses of the parties: 5 thousand killed and wounded by government troops and 50 thousand by the rebels;
the unyielding will of the government. The Empress was not going to consider the option of negotiating with the rebels, rejecting the very idea of talking with an impostor. Pugachev, calling himself the surviving Peter the Third, gained the support of a certain part of society, but was deprived of the possibility of pardon in case of failure;
the economic formation of the empire had not yet completely outlived its usefulness, the people’s faith in the sovereign was strong, and the patience of those who lived under the yoke of the landowners had not yet run out. That is why the rebels did not receive such massive support, although they were able to capture large territories.

What were the results of Pugachev's uprising. The leader of the rebel army brought upon himself sad consequences; it was forbidden to even mention his name.

Attention! The house where Emelyan Pugachev lived was publicly burned, and the village on the Don was renamed. Even the Yaik River began to be called the Ural.

The Peasant War led by Pugachev showed that administrative control on the outskirts of the country is weak. Therefore, the government hastily began reforms. In 1775, a provincial reform was carried out to disaggregate the provinces; as a result, the map of the empire changed: instead of 20 provinces, 50 appeared on it. Power was concentrated in the hands of the nobility.

Who was Emelyan Pugachev? G Nosovsky. New Chronology

Pugachev's rebellion

Conclusion

The Empress abandoned her liberal ideas, serfdom began to become stricter, and the state paid special attention to the security of the eastern lands (garrisons were strengthened, and special control was introduced over local officials). This was the last big riot in the history of the Russian Empire.