Since 1769, Russia has waged a difficult, but very successful war with Turkey for the possession of the Black Sea. However, in Russia itself it was very restless, at that time a rebellion began, which was included in the name of the "Pugachev rebellion". Many circumstances set the stage for such a rebellion, namely:

1. The dissatisfaction of the Volga peoples with national and religious oppression, as well as the arbitrariness of the tsarist authorities, increased. All sorts of obstacles were put up for the traditional folk religion and the activities of imams, mullahs, mosques and madrasahs, and part of the indigenous population was imprudently subjected to forcible Christianization. In the Southern Urals, on lands bought from the Bashkirs for a pittance, entrepreneurs built metallurgical plants, hired Bashkirs for a pittance for auxiliary work. Salt mines, banks of rivers and lakes, forest cottages and pastures were taken away from the indigenous population. Huge tracts of impenetrable forest were rapaciously cut down or burned to produce coal.

2. In the second half of the 18th century, the feudal oppression of the peasants intensified. After the death of Tsar Peter in Russia, a long period of "woman's rule" began, and the empresses distributed to the landowners, including their numerous favorites, hundreds of thousands of state peasants. As a result, every second peasant of Great Russia became a serf. In an effort to increase the profitability of the estates, the landowners increased the size of the corvee, their rights became unlimited. They could flog a person to death, buy, sell, exchange, send to the soldiers. In addition, a powerful moral factor of class injustice was superimposed on life. The fact is that on February 18, 1762, Emperor Peter III adopted a decree on the liberties of the nobility, which granted the ruling class the right to choose to either serve the state or resign and leave for their estates. Since ancient times, the people, in its various estates, had a firm conviction that each estate, to the best of its strength and ability, serves the state in the name of its prosperity and the people's good. Boyars and noblemen serve in the army and institutions, peasants work on the land, in their estates and in the estates of the nobility, workers and craftsmen - in workshops, factories, Cossacks - on the border. And here the whole class was given the right to sit back, lie back on sofas for years, get drunk, debauchery and eat gratuitous bread. It was this inactivity, uselessness, idleness and depraved life of the wealthy nobles that especially irritated and oppressed the working peasantry. The matter was aggravated by the fact that the 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 managed by the elders from their own, local peasants. The nobles retired after 25 years of service, in their mature years, often sick and wounded, wise by many years of service, knowledge and worldly experience. Now, young and healthy people of both sexes literally languished and languished from idleness, inventing new, often depraved, entertainments that demanded more and more money. In impulses of unbridled greed, many landlords took away land from the peasants, forcing them to work all week on corvee. The peasants understood in their gut and mind that the ruling circles, freeing themselves from service and labor, increasingly tightened the bonds of serfdom and oppressed the working, but disenfranchised peasantry. Therefore, they sought to restore a just, in their opinion, past way of life, to force presumptuous nobles to serve the Fatherland.

3. There was also great dissatisfaction of the mining workers with hard, backbreaking labor and poor living conditions. Serfs were assigned to state factories. Their work at the plant was counted as working off corvée. These peasants were supposed to receive funds for food from their subsidiary plots. Assignees were forced to work in factories up to 260 days a year, they had little time left to work in their farmsteads. Their farms were impoverished and impoverished, and people lived in extreme poverty. "Merchant" owners in the 40s were also allowed to "export all kinds of ranks of people" to the Ural factories. Only the breeder Tverdyshev acquired over 6 thousand peasants for his factories by the 60s of the 18th century.

The feudal breeders forced the serfs to work out the "lesson" not only for themselves, but also for the dead, sick, fugitive peasants, for the elderly and children. In a word, labor duties increased many times over and people could not get out of lifelong heavy bondage. Along with the ascribed and serfs, workmen, artisans and fugitives ("skhodtsy") people worked in the shops. For each runaway soul taken to work, the owner paid 50 rubles to the treasury and owned it for life.

4. The Cossacks were also unhappy. The Yaik Cossacks have long been famous for their love of freedom, fortitude in the old faith and in the traditions bequeathed by their ancestors. After the defeat of the Bulavinsky uprising, Peter I tried to limit the Cossack liberties on Yaik, disperse the Old Believers and shave the beards of the Cossacks, and received a corresponding protest and opposition that lasted several decades, surviving the emperor himself, and later gave rise to powerful uprisings. Since 1717, the Yaik chieftains ceased to be selected, but began to be appointed, and continuous complaints and denunciations were sent to St. Petersburg against the chieftains appointed by the tsar. From St. Petersburg, inspection commissions were appointed, which, with varying success, partly extinguished discontent, and partly, due to the corruption of the commissioners themselves, exacerbated it. In 1717-1760, the confrontation between the state authorities and the Yaitsky army developed into a protracted conflict, during which the Yaik Cossacks divided into "consenting" atamans and foremen and "disagreeing" ordinary military Cossacks. The cup of patience overflowed the following case. Since 1752, the Yaitsky army, after a long struggle with the merchant clan of the Guryevs, received the rich fisheries in the lower reaches of the Yaik. Ataman Borodin with the foremen used the profitable trade for their own enrichment. The Cossacks wrote complaints, but they were not given a go. In 1763 the Cossacks sent a complaint with 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 the Yaitsky town. But this did not humble the Cossacks, and they sent a new delegation to St. Petersburg, headed by the centurion Portnov. The delegates were arrested and sent under escort to Yaik. A new commission headed by General von Traubenberg also arrived there. This foreigner and bourbon began his activity by whipping seven elected respected Cossacks, shaving their beards and sending them under escort to Orenburg. This greatly outraged the freedom-loving stanitsa. 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 reach a solution to controversial but important issues by peace. But they were met by soldiers with rifles and gunners with cannons. When the mass of Cossacks entered the square in front of the Army hut, Baron von Traubenberg ordered to open fire from cannons and rifles. As a result of dagger fire, more than 100 people died, some rushed to run, 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 punishing soldiers were shot point-blank. General Traubenberg was hacked to death with swords, Captain Durnovo was beaten, the chieftain and foremen were hanged. They immediately elected a new chieftain, foremen and the Circle. But a detachment of punishers arrived from Orenburg, headed by General Freiman, abolished the new government, and then carried out the decision that arrived from St. Petersburg in the case of the insurgent Cossacks. All participants were flogged, in addition, 16 Cossacks had their nostrils torn out, they burned the brand "thief" on their faces and were sent to hard labor in Siberia, 38 Cossacks with their families were sent to Siberia, 25 were sent to the soldiers. The rest were imposed a huge indemnity - 36,765 rubles. But the brutal reprisal did not humble the Yaik Cossacks, they only held their anger and anger and waited for the moment to strike back.

5. Some historians do not deny the "Crimean-Turkish trace" in the Pugachev events, this is also indicated by some facts of Pugachev's biography. But Emelyan himself did not recognize the connection with the Turks and Crimeans, even under torture.

All this gave rise to acute dissatisfaction with the authorities, prompted them to seek a way out in active protest and resistance. All that was needed were instigators and leaders of the movement. The instigators appeared in the face of the Yaik Cossacks, and Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev became the leader of a powerful Cossack-peasant uprising.

Rice. 1. Emelyan Pugachev

Pugachev was born on the Don, in 1742 in the village of Zimoveyskaya, the same one where the rebellious ataman S.T. Razin. His father came from ordinary Cossacks. Until the age of 17, Emelya lived in his father's family, doing housework, and after he retired, he took his place in the regiment. At the age of 19 he married, and soon went on a campaign to Poland and Prussia with a regiment and participated in the Seven Years' War. For quickness and liveliness of mind, he was appointed adjutant to the regiment commander I.F. Denisov. In 1768 he went to war with Turkey, for his distinction in capturing the fortress of Bendery he received the rank of cornet. But a serious illness forced him to leave the army in 1771, the report says: "... and his chest and legs rotted." Pugachev tries to retire due to illness, but is refused. In December 1771, he secretly fled to the Terek. Before the Terek ataman Pavel Tatarnikov, he appears as a voluntary settler and is assigned to the village of Ishchorskaya, where he is soon elected stanitsa ataman. The Cossacks of the villages of Ishchorskaya, Naurskaya and Golyugaevskaya decide to send him to St. Petersburg to the Military Collegium with a request for an increase in salary and provisions. Having received 20 rubles of money and a stanitsa seal, he leaves for an easy stanitsa (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 was arrested again and escorted to Cherkassk. But with the help of a colleague in the Seven Years' War, he again flees and hides in Ukraine. With a group of local residents, he goes to the Kuban to the Nekrasov Cossacks. In November 1772, he arrived in the Yaitsky town and personally convinced the Yaitsky Cossacks of tension and anxiety 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 on the basis of a denunciation, Pugachev was arrested, beaten with batogs, shackled and sent to Simbirsk, then to Kazan. But he also runs from there and wanders around the Don, the Urals and in other parts. Just a real Cossack Rambo or ninja. Long wanderings embittered him and taught him a lot. He observed with his own eyes the hard life of the oppressed people, and a thought arose in the violent Cossack head to help the disenfranchised people gain the desired freedom and live the whole world in a Cossack way, widely, freely and in great abundance. When he next arrived 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 who were dissatisfied. Written in an illiterate, but lively, figurative and accessible language, Pugachev's manifestos were, as A.S. Pushkin, "an amazing example of folk eloquence." For many years, a legend about the miraculous rescue of Emperor Peter III and such impostors at that time was walking around the vast expanses of Mother Russia, but Pugachev turned out to be the most outstanding 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 took the name of the tsar to influence ordinary people, so it was easier to raise 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 stand up to fight against self-serving 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 farm of the Tolkachev brothers, located 100 miles from the Yaitsky town. Pugachev addressed them with a fiery speech and a "royal manifesto" written by Ivan Pochitalin. With this small detachment, Pugachev went towards the Yaitsky town. On the way, dozens of ordinary people pestered him: Russians and Tatars, Kalmyks and Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kirghiz. The detachment reached the number of 200 people and approached the Yaitsky town. The leader of the rebels sent a formidable decree on voluntary surrender to the capital of the troops, but was refused. Not having captured the town by storm, the rebels went up the Yaik, took the Gnilovsky outpost and convened the Cossack Army Circle. Andrey Ovchinnikov was elected troop chieftain, Dmitry Lysov was colonel, Andrey Vitoshnov was captain, captains and cornets were also chosen here. Moving up the Yaik, the rebels occupied the outposts of Genvartsovsky, Rubizhny, Kirsanovsky, Irteksky without a fight. The town of Iletsk tried to resist, but the ataman Ovchinnikov appeared there with a manifesto and the garrison of 300 people with 12 guns ceased resistance and met "Tsar Peter" with bread and salt. Dissatisfied crowds joined the rebels, and, as A. S. Pushkin later said, "a Russian revolt began, senseless and merciless."

Rice. 2. Surrender of the fortress to Pugachev

The Orenburg Governor Reinsdorp ordered the foreman Bilov with a detachment of 400 people with 6 guns to move towards the rebels to the rescue of the Yaitsky town. However, a large detachment of rebels approached the fortress of Rassypnaya and on September 24 the garrison surrendered without a fight. On September 27, the Pugachevites approached the Tatishchevskaya fortress. A large fortification on the way to Orenburg had a garrison of up to 1000 soldiers with 13 guns. In addition, a detachment of brigadier Bilov was in the fortress. The besieged repulsed the first attack. As part of the Bilov detachment, 150 Orenburg Cossacks of the centurion Timofey Padurov fought, who were sent to intercept the rebels moving around the fortress. To the surprise of the Tatishchevskaya garrison, the detachment of T. Padurov openly went over to the side of Pugachev. This undermined the strength of the defenders. The rebels set fire to the wooden walls, rushed to the attack and broke into the fortress. The soldiers almost did not resist, the Cossacks went over to the side of the impostor. The officers were brutally dealt with: Bilov was cut off his head, the commandant Colonel Elagin was skinned, 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 pieces, Pugachev took his beautiful daughter as a concubine, and later, having enjoyed himself following the example of Stenka Razin, he killed him along with his seven-year-old brother.

Unlike all other Orenburg Cossacks, almost the only case of a voluntary transition of 150 Orenburg Cossacks to the side of the rebels took place near the Tatishchevskaya fortress. What made the centurion T. Padurov change his oath, surrender to the thieves' Cossacks, serve an impostor and ultimately end his life on the gallows? Centurion Timofei Padurov comes from a wealthy Cossack family. He had a large allotment of land and a farm in the upper reaches of the Sakmara River. In 1766, he was elected to the Commission for the preparation of a new Code (code of laws) and lived in St. Petersburg for several years and rotated in court circles. After the dissolution of the commission, he was appointed chieftain 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 the governor of Reinsdorp with mutual denunciations and complaints. Not having achieved the truth, in the spring of 1772 the centurion 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 Tatishchevskaya fortress, he and the detachment went over to the side of the rebels, thereby helping to take the fortress and deal with its defenders. Apparently, Padurov did not forget his former grievances, he was disgusted with the foreign German queen, her favorites and the magnificent environment that he observed in St. Petersburg. He truly believed in the high mission of Pugachev, with his help he wanted to overthrow the hated queen. It should be noted that the tsarist aspirations of the Cossacks, their attempts to put their Cossack king on the throne, were repeatedly repeated in the Russian history of the 16th-18th centuries. In fact, since the end of the reign of the Rurik dynasty and with the beginning of the accession of the new Romanov clan, "tsars and princes", contenders for the Moscow crown, were constantly put forward from the Cossack environment. Emelyan himself played the role of the tsar well, forcing all his associates, as well as captured tsarist officers and nobles, to play along with him, swear allegiance, kiss his hand.

Dissenters immediately severely punished - executed, hanged, tortured. These facts confirm the version of historians about the stubborn struggle of the Cossacks for their Cossack-Russian-Horde dynasty. The arrival of the smart, active and authoritative Cossack T. Padurov to the camp of the Pugachevites turned out to be a great success. After all, this centurion knew court life well, could tell ordinary people about the life and customs of the queen in vivid colors, debunk her depraved, lustful and thieving environment, give visible truthfulness and real colors to all legends and versions about Pugachev’s royal origin. 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 drew up "royal manifestos and decrees." But not only. With a small detachment of Cossacks, he rode out to meet the punitive detachment of Colonel Chernyshov, who got lost in the steppe. Showing him his Golden Deputy badge, he entered into the confidence of the colonel and led his detachment to the very center of the rebel camp. Surrounded soldiers and Cossacks abandoned 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, in total more than 1500 soldiers with 5 guns. With the detachment there was a hundred mounted Bashkirs of Batyr Salavat Yulaev. The Pugachevites surrounded a detachment of government troops near the village of Yuzeevka. At the decisive moment of the battle, the Bashkirs went over to the side of the rebels, which decided the outcome of the battle. Some of the soldiers joined the ranks of the rebels, some were killed. Pugachev granted Yulaev the rank of colonel, from that moment the Bashkirs took an active part in the uprising. To attract them, Pugachev threw populist slogans to the national masses: about the expulsion of Russians from Bashkiria, about the destruction of all fortresses and factories, about the transfer of all land into the hands of the Bashkir people. These were false, out of touch promises, because it is impossible to reverse the movement of progress, but they pleased 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 taught his militias 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 Cossacks had good weapons, ordinary people, Bashkirs and peasants were armed with anything. Near Orenburg, the rebel army grew to 30 thousand people with 100 guns with 600 gunners. At the same time, Pugachev repaired the court and reprisals against the prisoners and shed rivers of blood.

Rice. 3. Pugachev's court

But all attacks on the capture of Orenburg were repulsed with heavy losses for the besiegers. Orenburg at that time was a first-class fortress with 10 bastions. In the ranks of the defenders were 3000 well-trained soldiers and Cossacks of the Separate Orenburg Corps, 70 guns were fired from the walls. The defeated General Kar fled to Moscow and caused great panic there. Anxiety swept over St. Petersburg. Catherine demanded an early conclusion of peace with the Turks, appointed the new commander in chief of the energetic and talented General A.I. Bibikov, 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 matters, it's the general indignation that matters...". 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. On 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 fortress of Chelyabinsk. The governor of the Iset province A.P. Veryovkin took drastic measures to strengthen the fortress. In December 1773, he ordered to gather 1300 "temporary Cossacks" in the district and the Chelyaba garrison grew to 2000 people with 18 guns. But many of its defenders sympathized with the rebels, and on January 5, 1774, an uprising broke out in the fortress. It was headed by the ataman of the Chelyabinsk Cossacks Ivan Urzhumtsev and the cornet Naum Nevzorov. The Cossacks, led by Nevzorov, seized the cannons that stood near the voivodship house, and opened fire from them on the soldiers of the garrison. The Cossacks broke into the governor's house and perpetrated a cruel massacre on him, beating him half to death. But carried away by the massacre of the hated officers, the rebels left the guns without proper supervision. Lieutenant Pushkarev with the Tobolsk company and gunners recaptured them and opened fire on the rebels. In the battle, the ataman Urzhumtsev was killed, and Nevzorov and the Cossacks left the city. On January 8, Ivan Gryaznov approached the fortress with troops and stormed it twice, but the garrison bravely and skillfully held the defense. The attackers suffered heavy losses from the fortress artillery. Reinforcements of Second Major Fadeev and part of the Siberian Corps of General Decolong broke through to the besieged. Gryaznov lifted the siege and went to Chebarkul, but having received reinforcements, he again occupied the village of Pershino near Chelyabinsk. On February 1, in the Pershino region, a battle took place between the Dekolong detachment and the rebels. Having not achieved success, government troops retreated to the fortress, and on February 8 they left it and retreated to Shadrinsk. The uprising spread, a vast territory was engulfed in the devouring fire of fratricidal war. But many fortresses stubbornly did not give up. The garrison of the Yaik fortress, not agreeing to any promises of the Pugachevites, continued to resist. The rebel commanders decided: if the fortress is taken, not only the officers, but also their families will be hanged. Places where this or that person will hang were outlined. The wife and five-year-old son of Captain Krylov, the future fabulist Ivan Krylov, were also listed there. As in any civil war, mutual hatred was so great that on both sides, everyone who was able to wear took part in the battles. The opposing troops included not only neighbors, but also close relatives. Father went to son, brother to brother. The old-timers of the Yaitsky town told 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 you something, I'll kill you! Wait, I'll climb onto the rampart, pull your forelock, you won't frighten your older brother in the future." And the younger brother fired at him from the squeaker and the older brother rolled into the ditch. The surname of the brothers, the Gorbunovs, has also been preserved. Terrible confusion reigned in the rebellious territory. Gangs of bandit robbers became more active. On a large scale, they practiced stealing people from the border strip into captivity to the nomads. By all means, the commanders of government troops who tried to extinguish the Pugachev uprising were often forced to engage 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 abusing 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 Kirghiz-Kaisaks and released 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, Sviyazhsk to the city. On March 22, the rebels suffered a severe 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 failed. Pugachev's Colonel Mussa Aliyev captured and extradited a prominent insurgent 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 Andrey Tolkachev, duma clerk Ivan Pochitalin, chief judge Andrey 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 committed a complete defeat of the rebels near Ufa. In April 1774, the commander-in-chief of the tsarist troops, General Bibikov, was poisoned in Bugulma by a captured Polish confederate. The new Commander-in-Chief Prince F.F. Shcherbatov concentrated large military forces and sought to attract the indigenous population to fight the rebels. From the regular army, the rebels suffered more and more defeats.

After these defeats, Pugachev decided to move to Bashkiria, and from that moment began the most successful period of his war with the tsarist government. One by one, he occupied the factories, replenishing his army with workers, weapons and ammunition. After the assault and destruction of the fortress of Magnitnaya (now Magnitogorsk), he gathered a meeting of the Bashkir foremen there, promised to return their lands and lands, destroy the fortifications of the Orenburg line, mines and factories, and expel all Russians. Seeing the ruined fortress and the surrounding mines, the Bashkir foremen with great joy met the promises and promises of the “sovereign of hope” 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 the fortresses. On May 20, they stormed the most powerful Trinity fortress. But on May 21, the troops of the Siberian Corps of General Dekolong 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, faltered and fled, while 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 Nizhneuvelsky, Kichiginsky and Koelsky fortifications, went through Varlamovo and Kundravy to the Zlatoust plant. However, near Kundravov, the rebels had an oncoming battle with a detachment of I.I. Michelson and suffered a new defeat. The Pugachevites broke away from the Michelson detachment, which also suffered heavy losses and refused to be pursued, plundered the Miass, Zlatoust and Satka factories and joined up with the detachment of S. Yulaev. A young poet-jigit 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 plants, Simsky, Yuryuzansky, Ust-Katavsky and others, destroyed and burned them. In total, during the uprising, 69 Ural factories were partially and completely destroyed, 43 factories did not participate in the rebel movement at all, the rest created self-defense units and defended their enterprises, or bought themselves off from the rebels. Therefore, in the 70s of the 18th century, industrial production throughout the Urals declined sharply. In June 1774, the detachments of Pugachev and S. Yulaev united and laid siege to the Osa fortress. After a hard battle, the fortress surrendered, and the road to Kazan opened up 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 held out. The indefatigable, energetic and skillful Michelson approached the city, and a field battle broke out 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 advent of Pugachev in the Volga region, the third and final stage of his struggle began. Enormous 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 the landowners, hanged the clerks, burned the master's estates. The Pugachev detachment turned south, to the Don. The Volga cities surrendered to Pugachev without a fight, Alatyr, Saransk, Penza, Petrovsk, Saratov fell ... The offensive proceeded rapidly. They took away cities and villages, repaired the court and reprisals against the masters, freed the convicts, confiscated the property of the nobles, distributed bread to the hungry, took away weapons and ammunition, recruited volunteers into Cossacks and left, leaving behind flames and ashes. On August 21, 1774, the rebels approached Tsaritsyn, the tireless Michelson followed on his heels. The assault on the city-fortress failed. On August 24, Mikhelson overtook Pugachev at the Black Yar. The battle ended in complete defeat, 2 thousand rebels were killed, 6 thousand were captured. With a detachment of two hundred rebels, the leader rode off to the trans-Volga steppes. But the days of the rebellious ataman were numbered. The active and talented General Pyotr Panin was appointed commander-in-chief of the troops operating against the rebels, and A.V. Suvorov. And what is very important, Don did not support Pugachev. Special mention should be made of this circumstance. On the Don, the Council of Elders of 15-20 people and the chieftain ruled. The circle met annually on January 1 and held elections for all the foremen, except for 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, after a while he was appointed military ataman for life. But the power corrupted him, and under him the uncontrolled domination of power and money began. In 1755, for many merits of the ataman, he was granted a major general, and in 1759, for his merits in the Seven Years' War, he was also a privy councilor with the person of the empress, and his son Stepan Efremov was appointed ataman on the Don. Thus, the power on the Don, by the highest order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, turned into hereditary and uncontrolled. From that time on, the ataman family crossed all moral boundaries in acquisitiveness, and in retaliation, an avalanche of complaints fell upon them. Since 1764, following the complaints of the Cossacks, Catherine demanded from Ataman Efremov a report on income, land and other possessions, his trades and foremen. The report did not satisfy her, and on her instructions, the commission on the economic situation on the Don worked. But the commission did not work shaky, not roll. 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 case, on the eve of Pugachev's rebellion, took a political turn, especially since Ataman Stepan Efremov had personal merits 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 the suppression of the rebellion, the capture of Pugachev and the pacification of the rebellious regions over the next few years. If the empress had not condemned the thieving ataman, Pugachev, no doubt, would have found support in the Don and the scope of the Pugachev rebellion would have been completely different.

The hopelessness of the further continuation of the rebellion was also understood by prominent associates of Pugachev. His associates - the Cossacks Tvorogov, Chumakov, Zheleznov, Feduliev and Burnov on September 12 captured and tied Pugachev. On September 15, he was taken to the Yaitsky town, at the same time Lieutenant General A.V. arrived there. Suvorov. The future generalissimo, during interrogation, 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 be quartered, the empress replaced him 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 put his troubled head on the chopping block, which the ax instantly cut off. Here, four of his closest associates were executed by hanging: Perfiliev, Shigaev, Padurov and Tornov.

Rice. 7 Execution of Pugachev

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 indulgences. Breeders were ordered to "multiply payments for work by half and not to force them to work beyond the established norms." Religious persecution was stopped in ethnic regions, mosques were allowed to be built and taxes were no longer taken from them. But the vindictive Empress Catherine II, noting the loyalty of the Orenburg Cossacks, was indignant at the Yaik Cossacks. The empress wanted to abolish the Yaik army altogether, but then, at the request of Potemkin, she forgave it. In order to consign the rebellion to complete oblivion, the army was renamed the Ural, the Yaik River into the Urals, the Yaik fortress into Uralsk, etc. Catherine II abolished the military circle and the elective administration. The choice of chieftains and foremen finally passed to the government. All guns were taken away from the troops and they were forbidden to have them in the future. The ban was lifted only after 140 years with the outbreak of World War II. However, the Yaik army was still lucky. The Volga Cossacks, also involved in the rebellion, were resettled in the North Caucasus, and the Zaporozhian Sich was completely eliminated. After a riot for at least ten years, the Ural and Orenburg Cossacks were armed only with edged weapons, they 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 in 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 XVII-XVIII centuries, the type of Cossack was finally formed - a universal warrior, equally capable of participating in sea and river raids, fighting on land both on horseback and on foot, who knows perfectly well artillery, fortification, siege, mine and demolition . But the main type of hostilities used to be sea and river raids. Mostly horse Cossacks became later under Peter I, after the prohibition in 1695 of going to sea. In essence, 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. By the exploits of the Cossacks, Russia became a powerful empire: Yermak presented Ivan the Terrible with the Siberian Khanate. The Siberian and Far Eastern lands along the rivers Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur, as well as Chukotka, Kamchatka, Central Asia, and the Caucasus were annexed largely due to the military prowess of the Cossacks. Ukraine was reunited with Russia by the Cossack ataman (hetman) Bogdan 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). Many and stubbornly Dnieper Cossacks rebelled in the Commonwealth. To a large extent, this was due to the fact that the ancestors of the Cossacks were ideologically brought up in the Horde on the laws of Yasa 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, Gediminoviches, Piasts, Jagiellons, Romanovs and others, in their eyes were not legitimate enough, 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 hundreds of Genghisides were destroyed in the course of strife and struggle for power, including by Cossack sabers, the Genghisides also lost their Cossack reverence. One should not discount the simple desire to “show off”, take advantage of the weakness of power and take legitimate and rich trophies during the unrest. The papal ambassador in the Sich, Father Pirling, who worked hard and successfully to direct the warlike fervor of the Cossacks to the lands of the heretics of Muscovites and Ottomans, wrote about this in his memoirs: “The Cossacks wrote their history with sabers, and not on the pages of ancient books, but on battlefields left this feather its bloody trail. It was customary for the Cossacks to deliver thrones to all sorts of applicants. In Moldavia and Wallachia, they periodically resorted to their help. For the formidable freemen of the Dnieper and Don, it was completely indifferent whether the real or imaginary rights belonged to the hero of the moment. For them, one thing was important - that good prey fell to their lot. And was it possible to compare the miserable Danubian principalities with the boundless plains of the Russian land, full of fabulous riches?

However, from the end of the 18th century until the October Revolution, the Cossacks unconditionally and diligently performed the role of defenders of Russian statehood and the support of tsarist power, even receiving the nickname "tsarist satraps" from the revolutionaries. By some miracle, the alien German queen and her outstanding nobles, by a combination of reasonable reforms and punitive actions, managed to drive into the violent Cossack head the stable idea that Catherine II and her descendants are "real" kings, and Russia is a real empire, in some places "more abruptly" Horde. This metamorphosis in the minds of the Cossacks, which took place at the end of the 18th century, has in fact been little studied and studied by Cossack historians and writers. But there is an indisputable fact: from the end of the 18th century until the October Revolution, the Cossack riots disappeared as if by magic, and the most bloody, longest and most famous riot in the history of Russia - the "Cossack riot" - choked.

Materials used:
Mamonov V.F. etc. History of the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, 1992.
Shibanov N.S. Orenburg Cossacks of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Chelyabinsk, 2003.
Gordeev A.A. History of the Cossacks.

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Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev

“Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev is a hero and an impostor, a sufferer and a rebel, a sinner and a saint ... But first of all, he is the leader of the people, a personality, of course, exceptional - otherwise he could not have drawn thousands of armies with him and led them into battle for two years. Raising an uprising, Pugachev knew that the people would follow him ”(G.M. Nesterov, local historian).

A similar idea is expressed in his painting by the artist T. Nazarenko. Her painting "Pugachev", in which she did not strive for a truly historical reconstruction of events, depicts a scene reminiscent of old folk oleography. On it are puppet figures of soldiers in bright uniforms and a conditional cage with a rebellious leader in the pose of a crucified Christ. And in front on a wooden horse, Generalissimo Suvorov: it was he who brought the “chief troublemaker” to Moscow. The second part of the picture, stylized as the era of the reign of Catherine II and the Pugachev rebellion, is written in a completely different manner - the famous portrait from the Historical Museum, in which Pugachev is painted over the image of the empress.

“My historical paintings, of course, are connected with today,” says Tatyana Nazarenko. - "Pugachev" is a story of betrayal. It is at every step. Companions refused Pugachev, dooming him to death. That's how it always happens."

T. Nazarenko "Pugachev". Diptych

Numerous legends, legends, epics, legends go about Pugachev and his associates. People pass them on from generation to generation.

The personality of E. I. Pugachev and the nature of the Peasant War have always been assessed ambiguously and in many ways contradictory. But with all the differences of opinion, the Pugachev uprising is a significant milestone in Russian history. And no matter how tragic the story, it must be known and respected.

How it all began?

The reason for the start of the Peasants' War, which engulfed vast territories and attracted several hundred thousand people into the ranks of the rebels, was the miraculous announcement of the saved "Tsar Peter Fedorovich". You can read about it on our website:. But let us briefly recall: Peter III (Pyotr Fedorovich, born Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, 1728-1762) - the Russian emperor in 1761-1762, was overthrown as a result of a palace coup that enthroned his wife, Catherine II, and soon lost his life. The personality and activities of Peter III for a long time were regarded by historians unanimously negatively, but then they began to treat him more balanced, evaluating a number of state merits of the emperor. During the reign of Catherine II, many people pretended to be Pyotr Fedorovich impostors(about forty cases recorded), the most famous of which was Emelyan Pugachev.

L. Pfantzelt "Portrait of Emperor Peter III"

Who is he?

Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev- Don Cossack. Born in 1742 in the Cossack village of Zimoveyskaya, Don Region (now the village of Pugachevskaya, Volgograd Region, where Stepan Razin was born earlier).

He took part in the Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, with his regiment he was in the division of Count Chernyshev. With the death of Peter III, the troops were returned to Russia. From 1763 to 1767, Pugachev served in his village, where his son Trofim was born, and then his daughter Agrafena. He was sent to Poland with the team of Yesaul Elisey Yakovlev to search for and return to Russia the fled Old Believers.

Participated in the Russian-Turkish war, where he fell ill and was dismissed, but was involved in the escape of his son-in-law from service and was forced to flee to the Terek. After numerous ups and downs, adventures and escapes, in November 1772 he settled in the Old Believer skete of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Saratov region with the rector Filaret, from whom he heard about the unrest that had occurred in the Yaik army. Some time later, in a conversation with one of the participants in the uprising of 1772, Denis Pyanov, for the first time, he called himself the surviving Peter III: “I’m not a merchant, but Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich, I was there in Tsaritsyn, that God and good people saved me, but instead of me they spotted a guard soldier, and in St. Petersburg one officer saved me”. Upon his return to the Mechetnaya Sloboda, on the denunciation of the peasant Filippov Pugachev, who was with him on a trip, they arrested and sent him for investigation, first to Simbirsk, then in January 1773 to Kazan.

Portrait of Pugachev, painted from nature with oil paints (the inscription on the portrait: "A real image of the rebel and deceiver Emelka Pugachev")

Having escaped again and again calling himself "Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich", he began to meet with the instigators of previous uprisings and discussed with them the possibility of a new performance. Then he found a competent person to draw up "royal decrees". In Mechetnaya Sloboda, he was identified, but again managed to escape and get to Talovy Umet, where the Yaik Cossacks D. Karavaev, M. Shigaev, I. Zarubin-Chika and T. Myasnikov were waiting for him. He again told them the story of his "miraculous escape" and discussed the possibility of a rebellion.

At this time, the commandant of the government garrison in the Yaik town, Lieutenant Colonel I. D. Simonov, having learned about the appearance in the army of a man posing as "Peter III", sent two teams to capture the impostor, but they managed to warn Pugachev. By this time, the ground for the uprising was ready. Not many Cossacks believed that Pugachev was Peter III, but everyone followed him. Hiding his illiteracy, he did not sign his manifestos; however, his “autograph” was preserved on a separate sheet, imitating the text of a written document, about which he told literate associates that it was written “in Latin”.

What caused the uprising?

As usual in such cases, there are many reasons, and all of them, when combined, create a fertile ground for the event to occur.

Yaik Cossacks were the main driving force behind the uprising. Throughout the 18th century, they gradually lost their privileges and liberties, but the memory still remained of the times of complete independence from Moscow and Cossack democracy. In the 1730s, there was an almost complete split of the troops into the foreman and military sides. The situation was aggravated by the monopoly on salt introduced by the tsar's decree in 1754. The army's economy was entirely built on the sale of fish and caviar, and salt was a strategic product. The ban on the free extraction of salt and the appearance of salt tax farmers among the top of the army led to a sharp stratification among the Cossacks. In 1763, the first major outburst of indignation occurred, the Cossacks wrote petitions to Orenburg and St. Petersburg, sent delegates from the army with a complaint against the atamans and local authorities. Sometimes they reached 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 of Russia. General Traubenberg went with a detachment of soldiers to investigate disobedience to the order. The result was the Yaik Cossack uprising of 1772, during which General Traubenberg and the military ataman of Tambov were killed. Troops were sent to put down the uprising. The rebels were defeated near 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 Yaik town, and all power over the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the garrison, Lieutenant Colonel I. D. Simonov. The massacre of the captured instigators was extremely cruel and made a depressing impression on the army: the Cossacks had never been branded before, their tongues had not been cut out. A large number of participants in the speech took refuge in distant steppe farms, excitement reigned everywhere, the state of the Cossacks was like a compressed spring.

V. Perov "Court of Pugachev"

Tension was also present in the environment Gentile peoples of the Urals and the Volga region. The development of the Urals and the colonization of the lands of the Volga region, which belonged to local nomadic peoples, intolerant religious policy led to numerous unrest among the Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Erzyans, Chuvashs, Udmurts, Kalmyks.

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 plants, allowing new breeders to buy serf villages and granting the informal right to keep fugitive serfs, since the Berg Collegium, which was in charge of the factories , tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and expulsion of all fugitives. It was very convenient to take advantage of the lack of rights and hopeless situation of the fugitives: if someone began to express dissatisfaction with their position, they were immediately handed over to the authorities for punishment. Former peasants resisted forced labor in factories.

Peasants, assigned to state and private factories, dreamed of returning to their usual village work. To top it all, Catherine II issued a Decree of August 22, 1767, prohibiting peasants from complaining about landowners. That is, there was complete impunity for some and complete dependence for others. And it becomes easier to understand how the circumstances helped Pugachev to carry so many people with him. Fantastic rumors about imminent liberty or about the transition of all peasants to the treasury, about the ready decree of the tsar, who was killed by his wife and boyars for this, that the tsar was not killed, but he hides until better times fell on the fertile ground of general human dissatisfaction with his current position . There was simply no other opportunity to defend their interests with all groups of future participants in the performance.

Insurrection

First step

The internal readiness of the Yaik Cossacks for the uprising was high, but for the performance they lacked a unifying idea, a core that would rally the hiding and hiding participants in the unrest of 1772. The rumor that Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich, who had miraculously escaped, appeared in the army instantly spread throughout Yaik.

The uprising began on Yaik. The starting point of Pugachev's movement was the Tolkachev farm located south of the Yaitsky town. It was from this farm that Pugachev, who by that time was already Peter III, Tsar Peter Fedorovich, addressed with a manifesto in which he granted all those who joined him “a river from the peaks to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salaries, and lead , and gunpowder, and grain provisions. At the head of his constantly replenished detachment, Pugachev approached Orenburg and laid siege to it. Here the question arises: why did Pugachev restrain his forces with this siege?

Orenburg for the Yaik Cossacks was the administrative center of the region and at the same time a symbol of the hostile authorities, because. from there came all the royal decrees. It was necessary to take it. And so Pugachev creates a headquarters, a kind of capital of the insurgent Cossacks, in the village of Berda near Orenburg turns into the capital of the insurgent Cossacks.

Later, in the village of Chesnokovka near Ufa, another center of movement was formed. Several other less significant centers also emerged. But the first stage of the war ended with two defeats of Pugachev - near the Tatishchev fortress and the Sakmarsky town, as well as the defeat of his closest associate - Zarubin-Chiki at Chesnokovka and the cessation of the siege of Orenburg and Ufa. Pugachev and his surviving associates leave for Bashkiria.

Map of the fighting of the Peasants' War

Second phase

In the second stage, the Bashkirs, who by that time had already made up the majority in the Pugachev army, massively participate in the uprising. At the same time, government forces became very active. This forced Pugachev to move towards Kazan, and then in mid-July 1774 to move to the right bank of the Volga. Even before the start of the battle, Pugachev announced that he would go from Kazan to Moscow. Word of this spread throughout the neighborhood. Despite the major defeat of the Pugachev army, the uprising swept the entire western bank of the Volga. Having crossed the Volga at Kokshaisk, Pugachev replenished his army with thousands of peasants. And Salavat Yulaev at that time with his detachments continued the fighting near Ufa, the detachments of the Bashkirs in the Pugachev detachment were led by Kinzya Arslanov. Pugachev entered Kurmysh, then entered Alatyr without hindrance, and then headed towards Saransk. On the central square of Saransk, a decree on freedom for the peasants was read out, the residents were given supplies of salt and bread, the city treasury “driving through the city fortress and along the streets ... they threw the mob that had come from different districts”. The same solemn meeting awaited Pugachev in Penza. The decrees caused numerous peasant revolts in the Volga region, the movement swept most of the Volga districts, approached the borders of the Moscow province, and really threatened Moscow.

The publication of decrees (manifestos on the liberation of the peasants) in Saransk and Penza is called the culmination of the Peasants' War. The decrees made a strong impression on the peasants, nobles and Catherine II herself. The enthusiasm led to the fact that a population of more than a million people was involved in the uprising. They could not give Pugachev's army anything in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments acted no further than their estate. But they turned Pugachev's campaign along 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 the army of Pugachev or its individual detachments approached, the peasants knitted or killed their landowners and their clerks, hanged local officials, burned estates, smashed shops and shops. In total, in the summer of 1774, about 3 thousand nobles and government officials were killed.

Thus ends the second phase of the war.

Third stage

In the second half of July 1774, when the Pugachev uprising was approaching the borders of the Moscow province and threatening Moscow itself, Empress Catherine II was alarmed by the events. In August 1774 Lieutenant-General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov was recalled from the 1st Army, which was in the Danubian principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

Seven regiments were brought to Moscow under the personal command of P.I. Panin. Moscow Governor-General Prince M.N. Volkonsky placed artillery near his house. The police stepped up surveillance and sent informants to crowded places to grab all those who sympathized with Pugachev. Mikhelson, who was pursuing the rebels from Kazan, turned towards Arzamas in order to block the road to the old capital. General Mansurov set out from Yaitsky town to Syzran, General Golitsyn - to Saransk. Everywhere Pugachev leaves rebellious villages behind him: “Not only peasants, but priests, monks, even archimandrites revolt sensitive and insensitive people”. But Pugachev turned south from Penza. Perhaps he wanted to attract the Volga and Don Cossacks to his ranks - the Yaik Cossacks were already tired of the war. But it was precisely in these days that a conspiracy of Cossack colonels began with the aim of surrendering Pugachev to the government in exchange for receiving a pardon.

Meanwhile, Pugachev took Petrovsk, Saratov, where priests in all churches served prayers for the health of Emperor Peter III, and government troops followed on his heels.

After Saratov, Kamyshin also met Pugachev with 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 of whose members, together with the leader, Academician Georg Lovitz, were hanged along with local officials who did not have time to escape. They were joined by a detachment of 3,000 Kalmyks, followed by the villages of the Volga Cossack army Antipovskaya and Karavainskaya. August 21, 1774 Pugachev tried to attack Tsaritsyn, but the assault failed.

The Michelson corps pursued Pugachev, and he hastily lifted the siege from Tsaritsyn, moving towards the Black Yar. Panic broke out in Astrakhan. August 24 Pugachev was overtaken by Michelson. Realizing that the battle could not be avoided, the Pugachevites lined up battle formations. On August 25, the last major battle of the troops under the command of Pugachev with the tsarist troops took place. The battle began with a major setback - all 24 guns of the rebel army were repulsed by a cavalry attack. In a fierce battle, more than 2,000 rebels died, among them Ataman Ovchinnikov. Over 6,000 people were taken prisoner. Pugachev with the Cossacks, breaking up into small detachments, fled across the Volga. During August-September, most of the participants in the uprising were caught and sent for investigation to Yaitsky town, Simbirsk, Orenburg.

Pugachev under escort. 18th century engraving

Pugachev fled with a detachment of Cossacks to Uzen, not knowing that since mid-August some colonels had been discussing the possibility of earning forgiveness by surrendering the impostor. Under the pretext of facilitating the escape from the chase, 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 Pugachev, after which Chumakov and Curds went to the Yaitsky town, where on September 11 they announced the capture of the impostor. Having received promises of pardon, they notified the accomplices, and on September 15 they delivered Pugachev to the Yaitsky town. The first interrogations took place, one of which was personally conducted by Suvorov, who also volunteered to escort Pugachev to Simbirsk, where the main investigation was underway. For the transportation of Pugachev, a cramped cage was made, mounted on a two-wheeled cart, in which, shackled hand and foot, he could not even turn around. In Simbirsk, for five days, he was interrogated by P. S. Potemkin, head of the secret investigative commissions, and Count P. I. Panin, commander of the government's punitive troops.

Continuation of the Peasants' War

With the capture of Pugachev, the war did not end - it unfolded too widely. The centers of the uprising were both scattered and organized, for example, in Bashkiria under the command of Salavat Yulaev and his father. The uprising continued in the Trans-Urals, in the Voronezh province, in the Tambov district. Many landlords left their homes and hid from the rebels. To bring down the wave of rebellions, punitive detachments began mass executions. In every village, in every town that received Pugachev, on the gallows, from which they barely had time to remove those hanged by Pugachev, they began to hang the leaders of the riots and the city heads and chieftains of local detachments appointed by the Pugachevites. To increase intimidation, the gallows were mounted on rafts and launched along the main rivers of the uprising. In May, Khlopushi was executed in Orenburg: his head was placed on a pole in the center of the city. During the investigation, the entire medieval set of tested means was used. In terms of cruelty and the number of victims, Pugachev and the government did not yield to each other.

"Gallows on the Volga" (illustration by N. N. Karazin for "The Captain's Daughter" by A. S. Pushkin)

The investigation into the Pugachev case

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 Iberian Gates of Kitay-gorod. The interrogations were led by Prince M.N. Volkonsky and Chief Secretary S.I. Sheshkovsky.

Pugachev gave detailed testimony about himself and about his plans and intentions, about the course of the uprising. Catherine II showed great interest in the course of the investigation. She even advised how best to conduct an inquiry and what questions to ask.

Judgment and execution

On December 31, Pugachev was transported under reinforced escort from the casemates of the Mint to the chambers of the Kremlin Palace. He was then led into the meeting room and forced to kneel. After a formal questioning, he was taken out of the hall, the court made a decision: “Emelka Pugachev should be quartered, his head stuck on a stake, body parts smashed into four parts of the city and put on wheels, and then burned in those places.” The rest of the defendants were divided according to the degree of their guilt into several groups for each of them to receive the appropriate type of execution or punishment.

On January 10, 1775, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, with a huge gathering of people, an execution was carried out. Pugachev kept calm. At the place of execution, he crossed himself at the Kremlin cathedrals, bowed to four sides with the words "Forgive me, Orthodox people." At the request of Catherine II, sentenced to quartering E.I. Pugachev and A.P. Perfilyev, the executioner first cut off their heads. On the same day, M. G. Shigaev, T. I. Podurov and V. I. Tornov were hanged. I. N. Zarubin-Chika was sent to Ufa, where he was executed by beheading in early February 1775.

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

Features of the Peasant War

This war was in many ways similar to the previous peasant wars. The role of the instigator of the war is played by the Cossacks, in many respects both social requirements and the motives of the rebels are similar. But there are also significant differences: 1) the coverage of a vast territory, which had no precedent in previous history; 2) different organization of the movement from the rest, the creation of central organs of command and control of the army, the publication of manifestos, a fairly clear structure of the army.

Consequences of the Peasants' War

In order to eradicate the memory of Pugachev, Catherine II issued decrees on the renaming of all places associated with these events. village Zimoveyskaya on the Don, where Pugachev was born, was renamed in Potemkinskaya, the house where Pugachev was born was ordered to burn. Yaik River was renamed to Ural, Yaik army - to the Ural Cossack army, Yaitsky town - to Uralsk, Verkhne-Yaitskaya pier - to Verkhneuralsk. The name of Pugachev was anathematized in churches along with Stenka Razin.

Decree of the ruling Senate

“... for the complete oblivion of this unfortunate incident that followed on Yaik, the river Yaik, along which both this army and the city had its name until now, due to the fact that this river flows from
Ural Mountains, to rename the Urals, and therefore the army to be called Ural, and henceforth not to be called Yaitsky, and the Yaitsky city will henceforth be called Uralsk; about what for information and execution
sim and published.

The policy towards the Cossack troops has been adjusted, the process of their transformation into army units is accelerating. By decree of February 22, 1784, the nobility of the local nobility was fixed. Tatar and Bashkir princes and murzas are equated in rights and liberties with the Russian nobility, including the right to own serfs, but only of the Muslim faith.

The Pugachev uprising caused great damage to the metallurgy of the Urals. 64 of the 129 factories that existed in the Urals fully joined the uprising. In May 1779, a manifesto was issued on the general rules for the use of assigned peasants in state-owned and particular enterprises, which limited breeders in the use of peasants assigned to factories, reduced the working day and increased wages.

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

Postage stamp of the USSR dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Peasant War of 1773-1775, E. I. Pugachev

Pugachev's court. Painting by Perov V., 1879, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

When and where did it happen

1773-1775

Volga region, Ural, Yaik

Causes

The deterioration of the position of the Cossacks

The introduction of a state monopoly on fishing and salt extraction, the state's attack on the Cossack liberties

Difficult working conditions at the Ural factories (operation, 12-15 hour working day)

Strengthening the arbitrariness of the landlords over the serfs (bullying, exile to Siberia for a fault under the decree of 1765, the right of the landowners to sell their serfs into recruits, the reduction of peasant allotments, etc.)

The disenfranchised position of the non-Russian people of the Volga region, the Urals (Tatars, Kalmyks, Bashkirs).

Goals

Return former liberty, independence for fishing and salt mining

Stop the lawlessness of the local administration

Free the peasantry from oppression, return their will and land

Improve the position of the Ural workers

Increase the rights of the population of the national outskirts

driving forces

Cossacks

Peasants

Serf Workers

Soldiers of the garrisons of the Yaitskaya line

Peoples of the Volga region

Stages of the uprising

At this stage, a large number of Cossacks, peasants, working people joined Pugachev, hoping to get freedom, land, the number of rebels increased. Pugachev took one fortress after another.

The siege of Orenburg was lifted, the rebels moved east. The army was replenished with working people from the Ural factories who brought guns, and non-Russian peoples

(number reached 20 thousand).

This is the most massive stage of the uprising. The army was replenished with peasants, whom in the "manifesto" Pugachev promised freedom and land, freed from dependence and taxes.

The course of the uprising:

Dates	Developments
September, 1773	The beginning of the uprising on the Tolkachev farm, in the south of the Yaitsky town. Pugachev declared himself miraculously saved by Peter 3. Pugachev distributed letters in which he promised the people freedom, land, exemption from recruitment kits, called for the killing of landowners.
October, 1773	Pugachev's army in 2.5. thousand people besieged Orenburg, where it grew to 15 thousand people and 86 guns. The siege lasted 6 months. but was unsuccessful. At the same time, Salavat Yulaev raised the Bashkirs to rebellion, Chika-Zarubin approached Ufa, Ovchinnikov with a detachment besieged the Yaitsky town, and Arapov-Samara.
January 1774	The uprising swept the entire Lower Volga region and the Southern Urals. Government troops were sent to suppress the rebellion, led by A.I. Bibikov.
	Battle under the fortress Tatishchevo, about around Orenburg. The defeat of the Pugachevites (loss of all artillery, 2 vehicles killed, 4 thousand wounded).
	Detachments of Salavat Yulaev and Chiki-Zarubin were defeated near Ufa
April - July, 1774	"Main army" Pugachev, defeated. Pugachev with a small detachment of 500 people took refuge in the Ural Mountains. Pugachev again gathers an army (most of them are Ural workers and Bashkirs).
	taken Kazan except for the Kremlin. An army was sent against Pugachev Michelson I.I., but it failed. Pugachev moved south. He hoped that the Don Cossacks would support him.
July-August, 1773	Pugachev captured a number of cities: Saransk, Penza, Saratov, Kamyshin, Tsaritsyn. The Don Cossacks remained loyal to the tsar and did not support Pugachev.
	Pugachev publishes "royal" manifesto» on the liberation of peasants from serfdom and taxes
August - early September 1774	The Pugachevites were driven out of Tsaritsyn, Pugachev himself, with a detachment of 200 people, was trying to escape, crossed to the left bank of the Volga. But he was seized by the Yaik Cossacks on September 8, 1774, and on September 12 he was extradited to Mikhelson.
September - November. 1774	A.V. Suvorov spoke out against the remaining rebels. Salavat Yulaev was also taken prisoner.
	The execution of Pugachev in Moscow on Bolotnaya Square

Reasons for the defeat

The spontaneous, unorganized nature of the uprising

Lack of a clear program of action, organization, weapons, military training

The rebels dreamed of a "good king" who would free them from oppression, give land and freedom. They did not advocate the overthrow of the foundations of autocracy.

Results

The cruel reprisal against Pugachev and the mass executions of the rebels.

The uprising or, as it is called, the war led by Yemelyan Pugachev significantly destabilized the country, became a real natural disaster.

Catherine II forbade even reminding of Pugachev, tried to erase everything connected with him in the memory of the people: the Yaitsk River was renamed the Ural, the Zimoveyskaya village where Pugachev lived was named Potemkinskaya. Even the Yaik Cossacks themselves began to be called Ural.

In 1775, the Zaporozhian Sich was liquidated - the remnant of the liberty of the Cossacks.

The uprising did not improve the situation of the peasants

The repressive nature of domestic policy in the country in relation to the entire taxable population has intensified.

The situation of working people at the Ural factories did not improve (only in a number of cases wages increased slightly and working conditions changed, but these were exceptions).

Significance of the rebellion

The Pugachev uprising is the largest uprising of the people in the history of Russia.

For the first time there was a struggle against serfdom for the abolition of serfdom

The first major joint performance of the Cossacks, peasants, working people, national minorities

The uprising forced Catherine II and the government to pay serious attention to the peasant question, to understand how terrible the revolt in Russia was, and what consequences it could lead to.

Any uprising is a sign of an unstable situation in the country. The Pugachev uprising showed the need for reform in the country.

Why can Pugachev's uprising be called a peasant war?

The uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev is often called peasant war, thereby emphasizing the scale of the uprising, the large number of participants and their heterogeneous composition, the presence of weapons, the promotion of slogans of national importance (the abolition of serfdom, for example), specific goals, objectives, the presence of certain documents (Pugachev's manifesto, his letters).

In addition, a certain organization of the troops was created: regiments were created, headed by "officers" appointed by Pugachev, there was a Military Collegium, which concentrated military, administrative and judicial power, a "great state seal" was placed, and Pugachev's guards were his guards.

A historical portrait of Emelyan Pugachev can be found on my websitehistorical-portrait.en

Material prepared: Melnikova Vera Alexandrovna

"Pugachev in Kazan is doing court", postcard 1931, edition of the Museum of the Revolution of the USSR

Pugachev under escort. 18th century engraving

"Execution of Pugachev". Engraving from a painting by A. I. Charlemagne. Mid 19th century

A garrison of government troops was deployed, all power over the army passed into the hands of the commandant of the garrison, Lieutenant Colonel I. D. Simonov. The perpetrated massacre of the captured instigators was extremely cruel and made a depressing impression on the army, the Cossacks had never been stigmatized before, their tongues had not been cut out. A large number of participants in the speech 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 the Volga region. The development of the Urals that began in the 18th century and the active colonization of the lands of the Volga region, the construction and development of military border lines, the expansion of the Orenburg, Yaik and Siberian Cossack troops with the allocation of land that previously belonged to local nomadic peoples, intolerant religious policy led to numerous unrest among the Bashkirs, Tatars, Mordovians, Chuvashs, Udmurts, Kazakhs, Kalmyks (most of the latter, having broken through the Yaik border line, migrated to Western China in 1771).

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

Peasants assigned to state and private factories dreamed of returning to their usual village labor, while the situation of peasants in serf estates was little better. The economic situation in the country, almost continuously waging one war after another, was difficult. The landowners increase the area of ​​crops, corvee increases. On top of this, there followed the Decree of Catherine II of August 22, 1767 on the prohibition of peasants from complaining about the landowners personally to the Empress (the decree did not forbid complaining about the landowners in the usual way).

In this situation, the most fantastic rumors about imminent liberty or about the transition of all peasants to the treasury easily found their way, about the ready decree of the tsar, who was killed by his wife and boyars for this, that the tsar was not killed, but he hides until better times - they all fell on the fertile ground of general human dissatisfaction with their present position.

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 rally the hiding and hiding participants in the unrest of 1772. The rumor that the miraculously saved emperor Pyotr Fedorovich appeared in the army instantly spread throughout Yaik. Pyotr Fedorovich was the husband of Catherine II, after the coup, he abdicated the throne and died mysteriously at the same time.

Few of the Cossack leaders believed in the resurrected tsar, but everyone looked to see if this man was capable of leading, gathering 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 (before that, Stepan Razin and Kondraty Bulavin had already given Russian history), a participant in the Seven Years' War and the war with Turkey 1768-1774.

Finding himself in the Trans-Volga steppes in the autumn of 1772, he stopped in Mechetnaya Sloboda and here, from the abbot of the Old Believer skete Filaret, he learned about unrest among the Yaik Cossacks. It is not known for certain where the idea to call himself a tsar was born in his head and what his initial plans were, but in November 1772 he arrived in the Yaitsky town and called himself Peter III at meetings with the Cossacks. Upon returning to the 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 Yaik 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 "king". From here, a detachment of 80 Cossacks headed up the Yaik. New supporters joined along the way, so that by the time September 18 arrived at the Yaitsky town, 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, from among those sent by the commandant Simonov to defend the town, went over to the side of the impostor. A second attack by the rebels on September 19 was also repelled 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 camped near the Iletsk town.

A circle was convened here, on which Andrey Ovchinnikov was elected as a marching ataman, all the Cossacks swore allegiance to the great sovereign Emperor Peter Fedorovich, after which Pugachev sent Ovchinnikov to the Iletsk town with decrees to the Cossacks: “ And whatever you wish, all benefits and salaries will not be denied to you; and your glory will not expire until forever; and both you and your descendants are the first in my presence, the great sovereign, learn» . Despite the opposition of the Iletsk ataman Portnov, Ovchinnikov convinced the local Cossacks to join the uprising, and they greeted Pugachev with bells and bread and salt.

All Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Pugachev. The first execution took place: according to the complaints of the inhabitants - "he did great offenses to them and ruined them" - Portnov was hanged. A separate regiment was formed from the Iletsk Cossacks, headed by Ivan Tvorogov, the army got 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 vast region under the control of the hated Reinsdorp. On the way to Orenburg, there were small fortresses of the Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance of the Orenburg military line. The garrison of the fortresses was, as a rule, mixed - Cossacks and soldiers, their life and service are perfectly described by Pushkin in The Captain's Daughter.

The fortress of Rassypnaya was taken by a lightning assault on September 24, and the local Cossacks, in the midst of the battle, went over to the rebellious side. On September 26, the Lower Lake Fortress was taken. On September 27, patrols of the rebels appeared in front of the Tatishchev fortress and began to convince the local garrison to surrender and join the army of the “sovereign” Pyotr Fedorovich. The garrison of the fortress was at least a thousand soldiers, and the commandant, Colonel Yelagin, hoped to fight back with the help of artillery. The skirmish continued throughout the day on 27 September. A detachment of Orenburg Cossacks, sent on a sortie, under the command of the centurion Podurov, went over in full force to the side of the rebels. Having managed to set fire to the wooden walls of the fortress, which started a fire in the town, and taking advantage of the panic that had begun in the town, the Cossacks broke into the fortress, after which most of the garrison laid down their arms. The commandant and officers resisted to the last, dying in battle; those captured, including members of their families, were shot after the battle. Commandant Elagin's daughter Tatyana, the widow of the commandant of the Lower Lake Fortress Kharlov, who was killed the day before, was taken by Pugachev as a concubine. With her, they left her brother Nikolai, in front of whom, after the battle, their mother was killed. The Cossacks shot Tatyana and her infant brother a month later.

With the artillery of the Tatishchev fortress and replenishment in people, the 2,000-strong detachment of Pugachev began to pose a real threat to Orenburg. On September 29, Pugachev solemnly entered the Chernorechensk fortress, the garrison and inhabitants of which swore allegiance to him.

The road to Orenburg was open, but Pugachev decided to head to Seitov settlement and the Sakmarsky town, as the Cossacks and Tatars who arrived from there assured him of universal devotion. On October 1, the population of Seitova Sloboda solemnly welcomed the Cossack army, placing a Tatar regiment in its ranks. In addition, a decree was issued in the Tatar language, addressed to the Tatars and Bashkirs, in which Pugachev granted them "lands, waters, forests, residences, herbs, rivers, fish, bread, laws, arable land, bodies, monetary salaries, lead and gunpowder ". And already on October 2, the rebel detachment entered the Sakmara Cossack town to the sound of bells. In addition to the Sakmara Cossack regiment, Pugachev was joined by workers from neighboring copper mines, miners Tverdyshev and Myasnikov. Khlopusha appeared in the Sakmarsky town as part of the rebels, originally sent by Governor Reinsdorp with secret letters to the rebels with a promise of pardon if Pugachev was extradited.

On October 4, the army of the rebels headed for the Berdskaya Sloboda near Orenburg, whose inhabitants also swore allegiance to the "resurrected" tsar. By this time, the impostor's army numbered about 2,500 people, of which about 1,500 Yaik, Iletsk and Orenburg Cossacks, 300 soldiers, 500 Kargaly Tatars. The artillery of the rebels consisted of several dozen cannons.

The siege of Orenburg and the first military successes

The capture of Orenburg became the main task of the rebels in connection with its importance as the capital of a vast region. If successful, the authority of the army and the leader of the uprising would have grown significantly, because the capture of each new town contributed to the unhindered capture of the next. In addition, it was important to capture the Orenburg weapons depots.

Panorama of Orenburg. 18th century engraving

But Orenburg, militarily, was a much more powerful fortification than even the Tatishchev fortress. An earthen rampart was erected around the city, fortified with 10 bastions and 2 semi-bastions. The height of the shaft reached 4 meters and above, and the width - 13 meters. On the outer side of the shaft there was a ditch about 4 meters deep and 10 meters wide. The garrison of Orenburg was about 3,000 people, of which about 1,500 soldiers, about a hundred guns. On October 4, a detachment of 626 Yaitsky Cossacks, who remained loyal to the government, with 4 guns, led by the Yaik military foreman M. Borodin, managed to approach Orenburg from the Yaitsky town without hindrance.

And already on October 5, Pugachev's army approached the city, setting up a temporary camp five miles from it. Cossacks were sent to the ramparts, who managed to convey Pugachev's decree to the troops of the garrison with a call to lay down their arms and join the "sovereign". In response, cannons from the city rampart began shelling 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. On October 7, a military council 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 the transition of soldiers and Cossacks to the side of Pugachev. The raid showed that the soldiers fought reluctantly, Major Naumov reported on the discovered “in his subordinates timidity and fear”.

The siege of Orenburg that began for six months fettered the main forces of the rebels, without bringing any of the parties a military success. On October 12, Naumov’s detachment made a second sortie, but successful artillery operations under the command of Chumakov helped repulse the attack. Pugachev’s army moved the camp to Berdskaya Sloboda due to the onset of frost, on October 22 an assault was launched, rebel batteries began shelling the city, but strong artillery return fire did not allowed to come close to the shaft.

At the same time, during October, the fortresses along the Samara River - Perevolotskaya, Novosergievskaya, Totskaya, Sorochinskaya - passed into the hands of the rebels, in early November - the Buzuluk fortress. On October 17, Pugachev sends Khlopusha to the Demidov Avzyan-Petrovsky factories. Khlopusha collected guns, provisions, money there, formed a detachment of artisans and factory peasants, as well as chained clerks, and in early November, at the head of the detachment, returned to Berdskaya Sloboda. Having received the rank of colonel from Pugachev, Khlopusha, at the head of his regiment, went to the Verkhneozernaya line of fortifications, where he took the Ilyinsky fortress and unsuccessfully tried to take Verkhneozernaya.

On October 14, Catherine II appointed Major General V. A. Kara as commander of a military expedition to suppress the rebellion. At the end of October, Kar arrived in Kazan from St. Petersburg and, at the head of a corps of two thousand soldiers and one and a half thousand militiamen, headed for Orenburg. On November 7, near the village of Yuzeeva, 98 versts from Orenburg, detachments of the Pugachev chieftains A. A. Ovchinnikov and I. N. Zarubin-Chiki attacked the vanguard of the Kara corps and, after a three-day battle, forced him to retreat back to Kazan. On November 13, a detachment of Colonel Chernyshev was captured near Orenburg, numbering up to 1100 Cossacks, 600-700 soldiers, 500 Kalmyks, 15 guns and a huge convoy. Realizing that instead of a non-prestigious, but victory over the rebels, he could get a complete defeat from untrained peasants and the Bashkir-Cossack irregular cavalry, Kar, under the pretext of illness, left the corps and went to Moscow, leaving command to General Freiman.

Such great successes inspired the Pugachevites, made them believe in themselves, the victory made a great impression on the peasantry, the Cossacks, increasing their influx into the ranks of the rebels. True, at the same time on November 14, the corps of brigadier Korf, numbering 2,500 people, managed to break into Orenburg.

Mass joining the uprising of the Bashkirs began. The Bashkir foreman Kinzya Arslanov, who entered the Pugachev Secret Duma, sent messages to the foremen and ordinary Bashkirs, in which he assured that Pugachev was giving all possible support to their needs. On October 12, foreman Kaskin Samarov took the Voskresensky copper smelter and, at the head of a detachment of Bashkirs and factory peasants of 600 people with 4 guns, arrived in Berdy. In November, as part of a large detachment of Bashkirs and Mishars, Salavat Yulaev went over to the side of Pugachev. In December, Salavat Yulaev formed a large rebel detachment in the northeastern part of Bashkiria and successfully fought the tsarist troops in the area of ​​the Krasnoufimskaya fortress and Kungur.

Together with Karanai Muratov, Kaskin Samarov captured Sterlitamak and Tabynsk, from November 28, the Pugachevites under the command of Ataman Ivan Gubanov and Kaskyn Samarov laid siege to 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 from the garrison.

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

In December 1773, Pugachev sent Ataman Mikhail Tolkachev with his decrees to the rulers of the Kazakh Younger Zhuz Nurali Khan and Sultan Dusala with an appeal to join his army, but the Khan decided to wait for the development of events, only horsemen of the Sryma Datov family joined Pugachev. On the way back, Tolkachev gathered Cossacks in his detachment in the fortresses and outposts on the lower Yaik and went with them to the Yaitsky town, collecting cannons, ammunition and provisions in the accompanying 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 - Kuren. Most of the Cossacks greeted their comrades and joined Tolkachev's detachment, the Cossacks of the senior side, the soldiers of the garrison, led by Lieutenant Colonel Simonov and Captain Krylov, locked themselves in the "retrenchment" - the fortress of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk 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 of historians, by the end of 1773, there were from 25 to 40 thousand people in the ranks of the Pugachev 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, secretary, M. D. Gorshkov.

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

In January 1774, ataman Ovchinnikov led a campaign to the lower reaches of Yaik, to Guryev town, stormed his Kremlin, captured rich trophies and replenished the detachment with local Cossacks, bringing them to Yaitsky town. At the same time, Pugachev himself arrived in the Yaitsky town. He took over the leadership of the protracted siege of the city fortress of the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Cathedral, but after an unsuccessful 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, on which N. A. Kargin was chosen as the military chieftain, and A. P. Perfilyev and I. A. Fofanov as foremen. At the same time, the Cossacks, wanting to finally intermarry the tsar with the army, married him to the young Cossack woman Ustinya Kuznetsova. In the second half of February and early March 1774, Pugachev again personally led attempts to capture the besieged fortress. On February 19, the bell tower of St. Michael's Cathedral was blown up and destroyed by a mine dig, but each time the garrison managed to repulse the attacks of the besiegers.

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

The situation in the besieged Orenburg by this time was already critical, famine began in the city. Upon learning of the departure of Pugachev and Ovchinnikov with part of the troops to the Yaitsky town, Governor Reinsdorp decided to make a sortie on January 13 to Berdskaya Sloboda to lift the siege. But the unexpected attack did not work, sentinel Cossacks managed to raise the alarm. The chieftains 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 defense line. The Orenburg corps were forced to fight in unfavorable conditions and suffered a severe defeat. With heavy losses, throwing cannons, weapons, ammunition and ammunition, the semi-encircled Orenburg troops hastily retreated to Orenburg under the cover of the city walls, losing only 281 people killed, 13 cannons with all their shells, a lot of weapons, ammunition and ammunition.

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

In early January, the Chelyabinsk Cossacks rebelled and tried to seize power in the city in the hope of getting help from the detachments of ataman Gryaznov, but were defeated by the city garrison. On January 10, Gryaznov unsuccessfully tried to take Chelyaba by storm, and on January 13, the 2,000-strong corps of General I. A. Dekolong, who had approached from Siberia, entered Chelyaba. Throughout January, battles unfolded on the outskirts of the city, and on February 8, Dekolong took it for the best to leave the city to the Pugachevites.

On February 16, the Khlopushi detachment stormed the Iletsk Protection, killing all the officers, taking possession of weapons, ammunition and provisions, and taking with them convicts, Cossacks and soldiers fit for military service

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasants' War area

When news reached 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 the garrisons and military units located in the uprising zone and the remnants of the corps Kara. Bibikov arrived in Kazan on December 25, 1773 and immediately began the movement of regiments and brigades under the command of P. M. Golitsyn and P. D. Mansurov to Samara, Orenburg, Ufa, Menzelinsk, Kungur, besieged by the Pugachev troops. Already on December 29, led by Major K.I. Mufel, the 24th light field team, reinforced by two squadrons of Bakhmut hussars and other units, recaptured Samara. Arapov retreated to Alekseevsk with several dozens of Pugachev’s men who remained with him, but the brigade led by Mansurov defeated his detachments in the battles near Alekseevsk and at the Buzuluk fortress, after which in Sorochinskaya it joined 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, actually 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 assembled. Soon a government detachment of 6500 people and 25 guns approached the fortress. The battle took place on March 22 and was extremely fierce. Prince Golitsin in his report to A. Bibikov wrote: “The matter was so important that I did not expect such impudence and orders in such unenlightened people in the military craft, as these defeated rebels are”. When the situation became hopeless, Pugachev decided to return to Berdy. His retreat was left to cover the Cossack regiment of Ataman Ovchinnikov. With his regiment, he staunchly defended 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 captured, all artillery and convoy. Among the dead was ataman Ilya Arapov.

Map of the second stage of the Peasants' War

At the same time, the St. Petersburg Carabinieri Regiment under the command of I. Mikhelson, stationed before that in Poland and aimed at suppressing the uprising, arrived on March 2, 1774 in Kazan and, reinforced by cavalry units on the move, was 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 Chiki-Zarubin, and two days later captured Zarubin himself and his entourage. Having won victories on 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 partisan tactics.

Leaving the Mansurov brigade in the Tatishchev 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 Yaik town, but having met government troops near the Perevolotsk fortress, he was forced to turn to the Sakmar town, where he decided to give battle to Golitsyn. In the battle on April 1, the rebels were again defeated, over 2800 people were captured, including Maxim Shigaev, Andrey 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.

In early April, the brigade of P. D. Mansurov, reinforced by the Izyumsky hussar regiment and the Cossack detachment of the Yaik foreman M. M. Borodin, headed from the Tatishchev fortress to the Yaitsky town. The fortresses Nizhneozernaya and Rassypnaya, the Iletsk town were taken from the Pugachevites, on April 12 the Cossack rebels were defeated at the Irtets outpost. In an effort to stop the advance of the punishers to their native Yaik town, the Cossacks, led by A. A. Ovchinnikov, A. P. Perfilyev and K. I. Dekhtyarev, decided to meet Mansurov. The meeting took place on April 15, 50 versts east of the Yaitsky town, near the Bykovka River. Having got involved in the battle, the Cossacks could not resist the regular troops, a retreat began, which gradually turned into a stampede. Pursued by the hussars, the Cossacks retreated to the Rubizhny outpost, losing hundreds of people killed, among whom was Dekhtyarev. Gathering people, Ataman Ovchinnikov led a detachment through the deaf steppes to the Southern Urals, to join the troops of Pugachev, who had gone beyond the Belaya River.

On the evening of April 15, when in the Yaik town they learned about the defeat at Bykovka, a group of Cossacks, wanting to curry favor with the punishers, tied up and handed over to Simonov atamans Kargin and Tolkachev. Mansurov entered the Yaitsky town on April 16, finally liberating the city fortress, besieged by the Pugachevites from December 30, 1773. The Cossacks who fled to the steppe were unable to break through to the main area of ​​the uprising, in May-July 1774, the teams of the Mansurov brigade and the Cossacks of the foreman's side began searching and defeating the rebel detachments of F. I. Derbetev, S. L Rechkina, I. A. Fofanova.

In early April 1774, the corps of Second Major Gagrin, who approached from Yekaterinburg, defeated Tumanov's detachment located in Chelyaba. And on May 1, the team of Lieutenant Colonel D. Kandaurov, who approached from Astrakhan, recaptured the Guryev town from the rebels.

On April 9, 1774, AI Bibikov, commander of military operations against Pugachev, died. After him, Catherine II entrusted the command of the troops to lieutenant general F. F. Shcherbatov, as a senior in rank. Offended by the fact that it was not him who was appointed to the post of commander of the troops, sending small teams to the nearest fortresses and villages to conduct investigations and punishments, General Golitsyn with the main forces of his corps stayed in Orenburg for three months. The 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 the Demidov serf artist V. P. Khudoyarov

On the morning of May 5, Pugachev's 5,000-strong detachment approached the Magnetic Fortress. By this time, Pugachev's detachment consisted mainly of poorly armed factory peasants and a small number of personal Yaik guards under the command of Myasnikov, the detachment did not have a single gun. The beginning of the assault on Magnitnaya was unsuccessful, about 500 people died in the battle, Pugachev himself was wounded in his right hand. After withdrawing the troops from the fortress and discussing the situation, the rebels, under the cover of night darkness, made a new attempt and were able to break into the fortress and capture it. As trophies got 10 guns, guns, ammunition. On May 7, detachments of chieftains A. Ovchinnikov, A. Perfilyev, I. Beloborodov and S. Maksimov pulled up to Magnitnaya from different sides.

Heading up the Yaik, the rebels captured the fortresses of Karagai, Petropavlovsk and Stepnoy, and on May 20 they approached the largest Troitskaya. By this time, the detachment consisted of 10 thousand people. During the assault that began, the garrison tried to repulse the attack with artillery fire, but overcoming desperate resistance, the rebels broke into Troitskaya. Pugachev got artillery with shells and stocks of gunpowder, stocks of food and fodder. On the morning of May 21, the insurgents who were resting after the battle were attacked by the Dekolong corps. 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 at that time in Bashkiria, east of Ufa, resistance to the Michelson detachment, covering Pugachev's army from his stubborn pursuit. In the battles that took place on May 6, 8, 17, 31, Salavat, although he did not succeed in them, did not allow significant losses to be inflicted on his troops. On June 3, he joined up 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 Michelson. Neither side achieved the desired success. Retreating north, Pugachev regrouped his forces while Mikhelson withdrew to Ufa to drive off the Bashkir detachments operating near the city and resupply ammunition and provisions.

Taking advantage of the respite, Pugachev headed for Kazan. On June 10, the Krasnoufimskaya fortress was taken, 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 troops under the command of Ivan Beloborodov and Salavat Yulaev approached the Kama town of Ose and blocked the city fortress. Four days later, the main forces of Pugachev came here and started 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”) appeared to Pugachev, posing as the envoy of Tsarevich Paul 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 mastered Osa, Pugachev ferried the army across the Kama, took along the way the Votkinsk and Izhevsk ironworks, Yelabuga, Sarapul, Menzelinsk, Agryz, Zainsk, Mamadysh and other cities and fortresses, and in the first days of 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 miles 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 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 the main districts of the city were taken, the garrison remaining in the city locked itself in the Kazan Kremlin and prepared for the siege. A strong fire began in the city, in addition, Pugachev received news of the approach of Michelson's troops, who were following him on the heels of Ufa, so the Pugachev troops 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 15 July. Pugachev's army numbered 25 thousand people, but most of them were lightly armed peasants who had just joined the uprising, Tatar and Bashkir cavalry armed with bows, and a small number of remaining Cossacks. Competent actions of Mikhelson, who first of all hit 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 to the public

We welcome this nominal decree with our royal and paternal
the mercy of all who were formerly in the peasantry and
in the citizenship of the landowners, to be loyal slaves
our own crown; and reward with an ancient cross
and prayer, heads and beards, liberty and freedom
and forever Cossacks, without requiring recruitment kits, capitation
and other monetary taxes, possession of lands, forests,
hayfields and fishing grounds, and salt pans
without purchase and without quitrent; and we free everyone from the previously committed
from the villains of the nobles and Gradtsk bribe-takers-judges to the peasant and everything
the people of imposed taxes and burdens. And we wish you the salvation of souls
and calm in the light of life, for which we have tasted and endured
from the prescribed villains-nobles, wanderings and considerable disasters.

And how is our name now by the power of the Almighty right hand in Russia
flourishes, for this sake we command this by our nominal decree:
who used to be nobles in their estates and vodchinas - these
opponents of our power and rebellions of the empire and despoilers
peasants, to catch, execute and hang, and to do likewise
how they, not having Christianity in themselves, repaired with you, the peasants.
After the extermination of which opponents and villainous nobles, anyone can
to feel the silence and calm life, which will continue until the century.

Given on July 31st, 1774.

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

emperor and autocrat of the All-Russian and other,

And passing, and passing.

Even before the start of the battle on July 15, Pugachev announced in the camp that he would go from Kazan to Moscow. The rumor of this instantly spread to all the nearest villages, estates and towns. Despite the major defeat of the Pugachev army, the flames of the uprising engulfed the entire western bank of the Volga. Having crossed the Volga at Kokshaisk, below the village of Sundyr, Pugachev replenished his army with thousands of peasants. By this time, Salavat Yulaev and his detachments continued fighting near Ufa, the Bashkir detachments in the Pugachev detachment were led by Kinzya Arslanov. On July 20, Pugachev entered Kurmysh, on the 23rd he entered Alatyr without hindrance, after which he headed for Saransk. On July 28, a decree on freedom for the peasants was read out on the central square of Saransk, the residents were given supplies of salt and bread, the city treasury “driving through the city fortress and along the streets ... they threw the mob that had come from different districts”. On July 31, the same solemn meeting awaited Pugachev in Penza. The decrees caused numerous peasant uprisings 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, really threatened Moscow.

The publication of decrees (in fact, manifestos on the liberation of the 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 seized 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 not give Pugachev's army anything in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments acted no further than their estate. But they turned Pugachev's campaign along 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 the army of Pugachev or its individual detachments approached, the peasants knitted or killed their landlords and their clerks, hanged local officials, burned estates, smashed shops and shops. In total, at least 3 thousand nobles and government officials were killed in the summer of 1774.

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. rebels. General F.F. Shcherbatov was expelled from this post on July 22, and by decree of July 29, Catherine II endowed Panin with emergency powers "in suppressing the 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 in 1770 received the Order of St. George I class, distinguished himself in that battle and the Don cornet Emelyan Pugachev.

To speed up the conclusion of peace, the terms of the Kuchuk-Kaynarji peace treaty were softened, and the troops released on the Turkish borders - only 20 cavalry and infantry regiments - were withdrawn from the armies for action against Pugachev. As Ekaterina noted, against Pugachev “there are so many troops dressed up that such an army was almost terrible to the neighbors”. It is a remarkable fact that in August 1774 Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was in the Danubian principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command 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 was expecting his march to Moscow. In Moscow, where the memories of the Plague Riot of 1771 were still fresh, seven regiments were pulled together under the personal command of P.I. Panin. The Moscow governor-general, Prince M.N. Volkonsky, ordered that artillery be placed near his house. The police stepped up surveillance and sent informants to crowded places in order to grab all those who sympathized with Pugachev. Mikhelson, who received the rank of colonel in July and pursued the rebels from Kazan, turned to Arzamas in order to block the road to the old capital. General Mansurov set out from Yaitsky town to Syzran, General Golitsyn to Saransk. The punitive teams of Mufel and Mellin reported that everywhere Pugachev left rebellious villages behind him and they did not have time to pacify them all. “Not only peasants, but priests, monks, even archimandrites revolt 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 kept the landowner Dubensky under arrest to extradite him to Pugachev. I wanted to free him, but the village rebelled and dispersed the team. From that moment I went to the villages of Mr. Vysheslavtsev and Prince Maksyutin, but I also found them under arrest by the peasants, and I freed them, and took them to Verkhniy Lomov; from the village Maksyutin I saw as mountains. Kerensk was on fire, and returning to Verkhniy Lomov, he found out that all the inhabitants, except for the clerks, had rebelled when they learned about the construction of Kerensk. Instigators: one-palace Yak. Gubanov, Matv. Bochkov, and the Streltsy settlement of the tenth Bezborod. I wanted to seize them and introduce them to Voronezh, but the inhabitants not only did not allow me to do so, but they almost put me under their own guard, but I left them and heard the cry of the rioters 2 miles from the city. I don’t know how it all ended, but I heard that Kerensk, with the help of captured Turks, fought off the villain. On my journey everywhere I noticed among the people the spirit of rebellion and a tendency to the Pretender. Especially in the Tanbovsky district, the departments of Prince. Vyazemsky, in economic peasants, who, for the arrival of Pugachev, fixed bridges everywhere and repaired roads. In addition to that village of Lipny, the headman with the tenths, honoring me as an accomplice of the villain, came to me and fell on their knees.

Map of the final stage of the uprising

But Pugachev turned south from Penza. Most historians indicate that Pugachev's plans to attract the Volga and, especially, the Don Cossacks into their ranks are the reason for this. It is possible that another reason was the desire of the Yaik Cossacks, who were tired of fighting and had already lost their main chieftains, 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 the fact that it was during these days that a 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 surrounded Saratov. The governor with a 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 an appeal to join his army. But by this time, the punitive detachments under the general command of Michelson were already literally on the heels of the Pugachevites, and on August 11 the city came under the control of government troops.

After Saratov, they went down the Volga to Kamyshin, which, like many cities before it, met Pugachev with bells and bread and salt. Near Kamyshin in the German colonies, Pugachev's troops collided with the Astrakhan astronomical expedition of the Academy of Sciences, many of whose members, together with the leader, Academician Georg Lovitz, were hanged along with local officials who had not managed to escape. Lovitz's son, Tobias, later also an academician, managed to survive. Having attached a 3,000-strong detachment of Kalmyks to themselves, the rebels entered the villages of the Volga army Antipovskaya and Karavainskaya, where they received broad support and from where messengers were sent to the Don with decrees on joining the Donets to the uprising. A detachment of government troops approaching 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. The Volga Cossacks, who remained loyal to the government, led by the chieftain, the garrisons of the Volga cities strengthened the defense of Tsaritsyn, where a thousandth detachment of Don Cossacks arrived under the command of the marching chieftain Perfilov.

Pugachev under arrest. Engraving from the 1770s

On August 21, Pugachev tried to attack Tsaritsyn, but the assault failed. Having received news of the arriving Michelson corps, Pugachev hastened to lift the siege from Tsaritsyn, the rebels moved to the Black Yar. Panic broke out in Astrakhan. On August 24, at the Solenikova fishing gang, Pugachev was overtaken by Mikhelson. Realizing that the battle could not be avoided, the Pugachevites lined up battle formations. On August 25, the last major battle of the troops under the command of Pugachev with the tsarist troops took place. The battle began with a major setback - all 24 guns of the rebel army were repulsed by a cavalry attack. In a fierce battle, more than 2,000 rebels died, among them ataman Ovchinnikov. Over 6,000 people were taken prisoner. Pugachev with the Cossacks, breaking up into small detachments, fled across the Volga. In pursuit of them, search detachments of Generals Mansurov and Golitsyn, the Yait foreman Borodin and the Don Colonel Tavinsky were sent. Not having time for the battle, Lieutenant General Suvorov also wished to participate in the capture. During August, September, most of the participants in the uprising were caught and sent for investigation to Yaitsky town, Simbirsk, Orenburg.

Pugachev fled to Uzen with a detachment of Cossacks, not knowing that since mid-August Chumakov, Curds, Fedulev and some other colonels had been discussing the possibility of earning forgiveness by surrendering the impostor. Under the pretext of facilitating the escape from the chase, they divided the detachment so as to separate the Cossacks loyal to Pugachev along with the ataman Perfilyev. On September 8, near the Bolshoi Uzen River, they pounced and tied Pugachev, after which Chumakov and Curds went to the Yaitsky town, where on September 11 they announced the capture of the impostor. Having received promises of pardon, they informed their accomplices, and on September 15 they took Pugachev to the Yaitsky town. The first interrogations took place, one of them was personally conducted by Suvorov, he also volunteered to escort the impostor to Simbirsk, where the main investigation was going on. For the transportation of Pugachev, a cramped cage was made, mounted on a two-wheeled cart, in which, chained hand and foot, he could not even turn around. In Simbirsk, for five days, he was interrogated by P. S. Potemkin, head of the secret investigative commissions, and count. PI Panin, commander of the punitive troops of the government.

Perfiliev and his detachment were captured on September 12 after a battle with punishers near the Derkul River.

Pugachev under escort. Engraving from the 1770s

At this time, in addition to scattered centers of the uprising, hostilities in Bashkiria had an organized character. Salavat Yulaev, together with his father Yulai Aznalin, led the rebel movement on the Siberian road, Karanai Muratov, Kachkyn Samarov, Selyausin Kinzin on Nogaiskaya, Bazargul Yunaev, Yulaman Kushaev and Mukhamet Safarov - in the Bashkir Trans-Urals. They fettered a significant contingent of government troops. In early August, even a new assault on Ufa was undertaken, but as a result of poor organization of interaction between various detachments, it turned out unsuccessfully. Kazakh detachments were alarmed by raids along the entire length of the border line. Governor Reinsdorp reported: “The Bashkirs and Kirghiz do not pacify, the latter are constantly crossing the Yaik, and people are being grabbed from near Orenburg. The local troops are either pursuing Pugachev or blocking his path, and I can’t go against the Kyrgyz, I exhort the Khan and the Saltans. They answered that they could not keep the Kirghiz, of whom the whole horde was revolting. With the capture of Pugachev, the direction of the liberated government troops to Bashkiria, the transition of the 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 wane. Salavat Yulaev gave his last battle on November 20 under the Katav-Ivanovsky plant besieged by him and, after the defeat, was captured on November 25. But individual rebel detachments in Bashkiria continued to resist until the summer of 1775.

Until the summer of 1775, unrest continued in the Voronezh Governorate, in the Tambov District, and along the Khopra and Vorona rivers. Although the detachments operating were small and there was no coordination of joint actions, according to the eyewitness Major Sverchkov, “many landowners, leaving their homes and savings, drive off to remote places, and those who remain in their houses save their lives from threatening death, spend the night in the forests”. Frightened landlords said that “If the Voronezh provincial office does not speed up the extermination of those villainous gangs that turned out to be, then the same bloodshed will inevitably follow as it happened in the past rebellion.”

To bring down the wave of rebellions, 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 chieftains of local detachments appointed by the Pugachevites. To enhance the frightening effect, the gallows were mounted on rafts and launched along the main rivers of the uprising. In May, Khlopushi was executed in Orenburg: his head was placed on a pole in the center of the city. During the investigation, the entire medieval set of tested means was used. In terms of cruelty and the number of victims, Pugachev and the government did not yield to each other.

In November, all the main participants in the uprising were transferred to Moscow for a general investigation. They were placed in the building of the Mint at the Iberian Gates of Kitay-Gorod. 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 participation in the Don Cossack army in the Seven Years and Turkish Wars, about his wanderings in Russia and Poland, about his plans and intentions, about the course of the uprising. The investigators tried to find out whether the initiators of the uprising were agents of foreign states, or schismatics, or anyone from the nobility. Catherine II showed great interest in the course of the investigation. In the materials of the Moscow investigation, several notes of Catherine II to M.N. Volkonsky were preserved with wishes about the plan in which the inquiry 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 ruling to close the investigation, since Pugachev and other persons under investigation could not add anything new to their testimony during interrogations and could neither alleviate nor aggravate their guilt. In a report to Catherine, they were forced to admit that they “... they tried, during this investigation, to find the beginning of the evil undertaken by this monster and his accomplices, or ... to that evil enterprise by mentors. But for all that, nothing else was revealed, somehow, that in all his villainy, the first beginning took its place in the Yaik army.

File:The execution of Pugachev.jpg

The 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 Room of the Kremlin Palace. They heard the manifesto of Catherine II on the appointment of the court, and then the indictment was announced in the case of Pugachev and his associates. Prince A. A. Vyazemsky offered to deliver Pugachev to the next court session. 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 led into the courtroom and forced to kneel. After a formal questioning, he was taken out of the hall, the court made a decision: "Quarter Emelka Pugachev, stick his head on a stake, smash the body parts in four parts of the city and put them on wheels, and then burn them in those places." The rest of the defendants were divided according to the degree of their guilt into several groups for each of them to receive the appropriate type of execution or punishment. On Saturday, January 10, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, with a huge gathering of people, an execution was carried out. Pugachev behaved with dignity, ascending the place of execution, crossed himself on the cathedrals of the Kremlin, bowed on four sides with the words "Forgive me, Orthodox people." Sentenced to quartering E. I. Pugachev and A. P. Perfilyev, the executioner first cut off his head, 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.

Leaf shop. Painting by the Demidov serf artist P.F. Khudoyarov

The Pugachev uprising caused great 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 them to make concessions in relation to the factory workers. The chief investigator in the Urals, Captain S.I. Mavrin, reported that the ascribed peasants, whom he considered the leading force of the uprising, supplied the impostor with weapons and joined his detachments, because the breeders oppressed their ascribed, forcing the peasants to travel long distances to the factories, did not allow them engage in arable farming and sell them products at inflated prices. Mavrin believed that decisive measures must be taken to prevent such unrest in the future. Catherine wrote to G.A. Potemkin that Mavrin “what he says about the factory peasants, everything is very thorough, and I think that there is nothing else to do with them, how to buy factories and, when there are state-owned ones, then make the peasants lighter”. On May 19, a manifesto was issued on the general rules for the use of assigned peasants at state-owned and particular enterprises, which somewhat limited breeders in the use of peasants assigned to factories, limited the working day and increased wages.

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

Studies and collections of archival documents

• A. S. Pushkin "History of Pugachev" (censored title - "History of the Pugachev rebellion")
• Grotto Ya.K. Materials for the history of the Pugachev rebellion (Papers by Kara and Bibikov). Saint Petersburg, 1862
• Dubrovin N. F. Pugachev and his accomplices. An episode from the reign of Empress Catherine II. 1773-1774 According to unpublished sources. T. 1-3. SPb., type. N. I. Skorokhodova, 1884
• Pugachevshchina. 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 archive of Pugachev. 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., The peasantry of Western Siberia in the peasant war of 1773-75. // Questions of history. 1952. No. 11.
• Muratov Kh. I. The Peasant War of 1773-1775. in Russia. M., Military Publishing, 1954

Art

Pugachev uprising in fiction

• A. S. Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter"
• S. P. Zlobin. "Salavat Yulaev"
• E. Fedorov "Stone Belt" (novel). Book 2 "Heirs"
• V. Ya. Shishkov "Emelyan Pugachev (novel)"
• V. Buganov "Pugachev" (biography in the series "Life of Remarkable People")
• Mashkovtsev V. "Golden Flower - Overcome" (historical novel). - Chelyabinsk, South Ural Book Publishing House, ISBN 5-7688-0257-6.

Cinema

• Pugachev () - feature film. Director Pavel Petrov-Bytov
• Emelyan Pugachev () - historical dilogy: "Slaves of Freedom" and "Will Washed with 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 rebellion () - a historical film based on the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "The Captain's Daughter" and "The Story of Pugachev"

Links

• Peasant war led by Pugachev on the site History of Orenburg
• Peasant war led by Pugachev (TSB)
• Gvozdikova I. Salavat Yulaev: historical portrait ("Belskie open spaces", 2004)
• Collection of documents on the history of the Pugachev uprising on the site Vostlit.info
• Maps: Map of the lands of the Yaik army, the Orenburg Territory and the Southern Urals, Map of the Saratov province (maps of the beginning of the 20th century)

1.2 Causes of the peasant war

The discontent of the people is the main reason for the uprising. And each part of the social group that participated in the peasant war had its own grounds for discontent.

1. The peasants were outraged by their lack of rights. They could be sold, played at cards, given away without their consent to work at a factory, etc. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in 1767 Catherine II issued a decree forbidding peasants to complain to the court or the empress about the landowners.

2. The annexed nationalities (Chuvash, Bashkirs, Udmurts, Tatars, Kalmyks, Kazakhs) were dissatisfied with the oppression of their faith, the seizure of their lands and the construction of military installations on their territories.

3. The Cossacks did not like that their freedom was being infringed upon. Their rights were increasingly limited: for example, they could no longer choose and remove the chieftain as before. Now the Military Collegium did it for them. The state also established a monopoly on salt, which undermined the economy of the Cossacks. The fact is that the Cossacks mainly lived by selling fish and caviar, and salt played an important role in increasing their shelf life. The Cossacks were not allowed to extract salt themselves, the Cossacks were also not happy with this. Finally, the Cossack army abandoned the pursuit of the Kalmyks, which was ordered to them by the top. The government sent a detachment to pacify the Cossacks. The Cossacks responded to this only with a new uprising, which was brutally suppressed. People were horrified by the punishments of the main instigators and were tense.

The reasons for the uprising can also include all kinds of rumors that circulated among the people. It was rumored that Emperor Peter III survived, that it was planned to soon release the serfs and grant them lands. These words, unconfirmed by anything, kept the peasants in tension, which was ready to turn into an uprising.

Also speaking about the reasons for the Pugachev uprising, one cannot but say about the leader himself. After all, in those days there were many impostors, and only he was able to gather thousands of people around him. All this thanks to his mind and personality.

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