The first peasant war was a led uprising. The Pugachev uprising. Pugachev in the Volga region

In September 1773, on the far southeastern outskirts of Russia, on the banks of the river. Yaik, an uprising broke out among the Yaik Cossacks under the leadership of E. Pugachev. In the course of its development, it acquired the character of a genuine peasant war against the feudal-serf system of Russia in the 18th century. Therefore, in the history of our homeland, this spontaneous uprising of the peasantry is called peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev.

The peasant war of 1773-1775 was a natural consequence of the socio-economic conditions of feudal-feudal Russia in the 18th century, an expression of the acute class struggle of the multinational peasantry of Russia against their oppressors and exploiters - the nobles and landowners, against the noble-landlord state.

The uprising of the peasantry was spontaneous and disorganized. The downtrodden, obscure, completely illiterate peasantry could not create its own organization and work out its own program. The demands of the rebellious peasants and of all the exploited people did not go further than the desire to have a "good tsar" who would free the peasantry from the oppression of the noble landowners, who would grant land and freedom. In the eyes of the rebellious peasants, such a king was the leader of the uprising, the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, who took on the name of Emperor Peter III.

As the leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev did not, however, have a clear program of action. His aspirations were also associated only with the accession to the Russian throne of the "good tsar".

The spark of the uprising that broke out in September 1773 on the banks of the Yaik, a month later blazed with a bright flame and engulfed a huge region within a year: from the Caspian in the south to the modern cities of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Kungur, Molotov in the north, from the rivers Tobol, Ural and Kazakh steppes in the east to the right bank of the Volga in the west.

The uprising lasted more than a year - from September 1773 to early 1775. The tsarist government, headed by Catherine II, mobilized large military forces to suppress the uprising. The uprising was brutally suppressed. The leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev, who was betrayed in September 1774 by traitors to the tsarist authorities, was executed in Moscow on January 10, 1775.

Prerequisites for the uprising

Despite the struggle that the Bashkirs waged for decades, resettlement to Bashkiria was increasing, the seizure of land continued, the number of estates belonging to the landowners grew; at the same time, the area of ​​land that remained in the use of the Bashkirs decreased.

The wealth of the Urals attracted new entrepreneurs who seized vast tracts of land and built factories on them. Almost all large dignitaries, ministers, senators with their capital participated in the construction of metallurgical plants in the Urals, and hence the government's attitude to the complaints and protests of the Bashkirs.

Bashkirs unite in groups of several people, attack newly built factories and landowners' estates, trying to take revenge on their oppressors. More and more, a situation was created in which the various peoples inhabiting the region had to protest against colonization, reaching the point of open struggle.

The uprisings of the Bashkirs, the departure of the Kalmyks from the borders of Russia to China, the alertness, the hostile attitude of the Kazakh people towards Russia - all this speaks for the fact that the tsarist policy to these peoples was understandable, that it was hostile to them.

Due to the fact that the population was still sparse, the demand for labor is increasing. The breeders seek in 1784 the government instruction, according to which the owners of the factories are given the right to attach and use in the factories from 100 to 150 households of state peasants. Peasants attached to factories were not paid for work at the factories. Since the population of the region was very rare, peasants from villages located at a great distance were attached to the plant. This type of corvee became even more difficult, since the peasants were cut off from the villages for almost a year and did not have the opportunity to work on their farm.

The breeders with all their strength and means sought to completely liquidate the peasants' economy, tear them off the land and completely take them into their own hands.

There is no way to convey all the techniques and methods used by the breeders in their desire to ruin the peasants, to deprive them of their economic base. They sent special detachments that burst into villages in the midst of field work, during spring sowing, harvesting, etc., grabbed the peasants, flogged them, torn them off from work and escorted them to the plant. The strips remained unplowed, the harvest unharvested. The peasants complained to the local authorities, reached the capital itself, but at best they were not accepted, and sometimes, even without examining the cases, they were called rioters and imprisoned.

The clerks at the factories strenuously observed that there were no "parasites", i.e. so that not only men but also women and children work. As a result of this exploitation, overcrowding, poor nutrition and exhaustion of strength, infectious diseases developed, and mortality increased.

The peasants repeatedly rebelled against registration in factories, but these uprisings were of a purely local nature, arose spontaneously and were brutally suppressed by military detachments.

Not only peasants worked in the factories, most of the fugitive people concentrated here. Among them were serfs, various criminals, Old Believers, etc. Until there was a decree on the fight against the fugitives and their return to their place of residence, they lived relatively freely, but after the decree, detachments of soldiers began to pursue them. Wherever the fugitive appeared, everywhere they asked him "kind", and since there was no "kind", the fugitive was immediately taken away and sent home to carry out reprisals there.

Knowing that the fugitives were deprived of rights, the breeders freely hired them, and soon the factories turned into a place of concentration of the fugitives. The Berg Collegium, which was in charge of the factories, tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and expulsion of all the fugitives, and the troops of the Orenburg governor did not have the right to raid the factories.

Taking advantage of the powerlessness and hopelessness of the fugitives, the breeders put them in the position of slaves, and the slightest discontent, protest of the fugitives caused repression: the fugitives were immediately seized, handed over to the soldiers, mercilessly flogged and then sent to hard labor.

Working conditions in the mining factories were dreadful: the mines lacked ventilation and the workers were suffocating from the heat and lack of air; the pumps were poorly adjusted, and people worked for hours standing waist-deep in water. Although the breeders were given some instructions to improve working conditions, no one followed them, since officials were accustomed to bribes, and it was more profitable for the breeder to give a bribe than to spend money on technical innovations.

The position of the serfs was no better. In 1762, Catherine II, the wife of Peter III, who assisted in the murder of her husband, ascended the throne. As a henchman of the nobles, Catherine II marked her reign with the final enslavement of the peasants, giving the nobles the right to dispose of the peasants at their discretion. In 1767, she issued a decree forbidding peasants from complaining about their landlords; those guilty of violating this decree were subjected to reference to hard labor.

With the growth of foreign trade, imported goods appear on the markets: beautiful fine fabrics, high-grade wines, jewelry, various subjects luxury and trinkets; they could only be purchased for money. But in order to have money, the landlords had to sell something. They could only throw agricultural products onto the market, so the landlords are increasing the area under crops, which is a new burden on the peasants. Under Catherine the corvee increased to 4 days, and in some localities, in particular in the Orenburg region, it reached 6 days a week. The peasants had only nights and Sundays and other holidays to work on their farm. One of the types of landlord management was plantation farming, when serfs worked all the time for the master and received bread for this to feed. The peasants were in the position of slaves, they were the property of their masters and were dependent on them.

The decree of Catherine II banning the peasants from complaining about the landowners gave an impetus to the unbridled Russian master's passions. If Saltychikha, who lived in the center of Russia, tortured up to a hundred people with her own hands, then what did the landowners who lived in the outskirts do? Peasants were sold wholesale and retail, landlords dishonored girls, women, raped minors, mocked pregnant women. On the day of the wedding, they abducted the brides and, disgracing them, returned them to the grooms. The peasants were lost at cards, exchanged for dogs, for the slightest offense they were brutally beaten with whips, whips, rods.

The peasants, despite the decree, tried to complain to the Orenburg governors. In the Orenburg regional archives, several dozen "cases" have been preserved about the rape of minors, about the abuse of pregnant women, about peasants who had been whipped with rods, etc., but most of them were left without consequences.

Not only the various peoples inhabiting the region, mining workers and peasants, were dissatisfied with the existing state of affairs, but a dull discontent was ripening among the Cossacks, since their previous privileges and benefits were gradually canceled.

Fishing was one of the main sources of income for the Cossacks. The Cossacks used fish not only for their own food, but also exported it to the market. In fisheries, salt was of great importance, and the decree of 1754 on the salt monopoly dealt a huge blow to the economy of the Cossacks. Before the decree, the Cossacks used salt free of charge, extracting it in unlimited quantities from salt lakes. The Cossacks were dissatisfied with the monopoly and the collection of money for salt was considered a direct encroachment on their rights and property. Class stratification grew in the Cossack environment. The elders' elite, led by atamans, take power into their own hands and use their position for personal enrichment. Atamans take over the salt mines and make all the Cossacks dependent. For salt, in addition to monetary payment, the chieftains collect in their favor the tenth fish from each catch. But this is not enough. The Yaik Cossacks received a small salary from the treasury for their service, the chieftains began to keep it, ostensibly as payment for the right to fish on Yaik. Subsequently, this salary was not enough, and the chieftains introduced an additional tax. All this caused discontent, which in 1763 resulted in an uprising of rank-and-file Cossacks against the elders' elite.

The commissions of inquiry sent to the Yaitsky town, although they removed the atamans, but, being supporters of the kulak ruling part, nominated new atamans from its midst, so the situation did not improve.

But in 1766, a decree was issued that caused discontent on the part of the rich. Prior to the decree, the Yaik Cossacks had the right to hire others in their place for military service. The rich had the means to hire them, and this decree forbidding hiring was a hostile meeting for them, since they had to serve in the army again. The decree was also dissatisfied with part of the Cossack dullness, which, due to its financial insecurity, was forced to replace the sons of wealthy Cossacks in military service for money.

At the same time, service orders are growing, Cossacks are taken away from their homes by hundreds and sent to various places. With the separation of men from home, households begin to wither and decline. Indignant at all the growing hardships, the Yaik Cossacks, secretly from their superiors, sent their walkers to the queen with a petition, but the walkers were accepted as rebels and were subjected to corporal punishment with whips. This incident made it clear to the Cossacks that there was nothing to hope for help from above, but that they had to look for the truth ourselves.

In 1771, a new uprising broke out among the Yaik Cossacks, troops were sent to suppress it. The immediate causes of the uprising were the following events. In 1771, the Kalmyks left the Volga region to the borders of China. Wanting to detain them, the Orenburg governor demanded that the Yaik Cossacks set out in pursuit. In response, the Cossacks said that until then they would not fulfill the requirements of the governor, until the seized privileges and liberties were restored. The Cossacks demanded the return of the right to elect chieftains and other military commanders, demanded payment of the detained salary, etc. A detachment of soldiers under the leadership of Traunbenberg was sent to Yaitsky town from Orenburg to clarify the situation.

Being a power-hungry man, Traunbenberg, without delving into the essence of the matter, decided to act with weapons. Batteries struck on Yaitsky town. In response, the Cossacks rushed to arms, attacked the sent detachment, defeated it, chopping General Traunbenberg into pieces. Ataman Tambovtsev, who tried to prevent the uprising, was hanged.

The defeat of Traunbenberg's detachment caused alarm among the provincial authorities, and they did not hesitate to send fresh military units under the command of General Freiman to the Yaitsky town to suppress the "rebellion". In a battle with superior enemy forces, the Cossacks were defeated. The government decided to deal with the Cossacks so that the Cossacks would remember for a long time. For the reprisal of the rebels, specialist executioners were called from different cities, who carried out torture and executions. In its cruelty, this reprisal resembles the execution of Urusov. They hanged the Cossacks, put them on stakes, burned a stamp on their bodies; many were exiled to eternal hard labor. However, these executions aroused the Cossacks even more, and they were ready to ignite the fire of a new struggle.

The position of the Orenburg Cossacks was no better. They never had the liberties and privileges for which the Yaik Cossacks fought. Organized by virtue of the decree, the Orenburg Cossack army was in a much worse position than the Yaitsk one. Orenburg Cossacks lived in stanitsas scattered across the territory of the region; as a rule, the villages were built up near the fortresses, in which the Cossacks were in military service. In form, they had an elective stanitsa leadership, but in essence they were subordinate to the commandants of the fortresses. The commandants at first extend their power only to men, forcing them to perform work in their personal household, but over time it seems to them that this is not enough, they begin to exploit the entire population of the villages. The position of the Orenburg Cossacks was in many respects similar to that of the serfs. Being sovereign and almost uncontrollable, the commandants established a difficult regime in the villages, invaded the family and everyday affairs of the Cossacks. Moreover, most of the Orenburg Cossacks did not receive any salary. They were also dissatisfied with their position, but, being scattered all over the region, they silently endured all the oppression, waiting for an opportunity to deal with their offenders.

From all this it is clear that the entire population of the region, with the exception of tsarist officials, landowners, breeders and kulaks, was dissatisfied with the existing order and was ready to take revenge on the oppressors. Rumors began to appear among the people that the local authorities were to blame for the hard life, that they were doing their own will without the knowledge of the queen; rumors are spreading that the tsarina is also to blame, who does everything according to the will of the nobles, that if Tsar Peter Fyodorovich were alive, it would be easier to live. Behind these rumors, new ones did not hesitate to appear that Pyotr Fedorovich with the help of guards escaped death, that he was alive and would soon call a cry to fight against officials and nobles.

The Orenburg province was as if on a powder keg, and it was enough for a brave man to find himself, to throw a call, as thousands of people would rise to him from all sides. And such brave man found in the person of the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev. He was a brave, strong, brave man, had a clear, inquiring mind and observation.

Pugachev's personality

E. I. Pugachev

Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev - Don Cossack by origin, a native of the Zimoveiskaya village, a participant in the Seven Years War with Prussia and the first war with Turkey (1768-1774). He first came to the Trans-Volga steppes in November 1772, after several years of wandering in search of a better life. Having received a passport for a settlement on the Irgiz River, E. Pugachev in November 1772 arrives in Mechetnaya Sloboda (now the city of Pugachev, Saratov Region) and stops at the abbot of the Old Believer skete Filaret. From him, Pugachev learns about the unrest among the Yaik Cossacks and their intention to leave for new places.

Pugachev has a plan - to take the Cossacks to the Kuban River. To find out the intention of the Cossacks, on November 22, 1772, he comes under the guise of a merchant to Yaitsky town, devotes several people to his plans and for the first time calls himself Emperor Peter III. Upon his return to Irgiz, Pugachev was arrested on a denunciation and on December 19, chained in chains, sent to Simbirsk, and from there to Kazan, where he was imprisoned.

Thanks to his exceptional resourcefulness and courage, Pugachev escaped from the Kazan prison at the end of May 1773 and in August reappeared in the Trans-Volga steppes. This time he finds shelter at the Talovoy Umet Stepan Obolyaev, 60 miles from the Yaitsky town. Here Pugachev again "confesses" that he miraculously escaped from death Emperor Peter III and arrived at Yaik to protect ordinary Cossacks from the elders and grant them primordial liberties.

In connection with the flight of Pugachev, the authorities sounded the alarm, special detachments were sent to capture him, who seized the Cossacks and, with the help of torture, tried to find out where the fugitive was.

The Yaik Cossacks were on their guard. Rumors spread with renewed vigor that Peter III was alive, that the authorities were looking for him, and that Pugachev was the tsar who had escaped death.

These events accelerated the course of the uprising. Pugachev announced that he was really Tsar Peter III, that the wicked wife and the nobles decided to kill him in order to rule the people at their own discretion.

Testimonies of contemporaries and eyewitnesses - participants in the uprising describe the appearance of Yemelyan Pugachev. He was of medium height, broad at the shoulders, thin at the waist, a little dark-skinned, lean, with dark eyes and hair cut like a Cossack.

This is how Pugachev looks in the portrait, painted during his stay in the Iletsky town.

The original of this portrait has survived to this day and is kept in the collections of the State Historical Museum in. Moscow. The portrait is painted in oil on canvas; its size is 1 yard? vershok by 12? verskov. Icon-painting techniques of writing indicate that the author of the portrait was a self-taught icon painter from the Old Believers. At the top of the portrait, on its left side, the date is put: "September 21, 1773", and on the reverse side the following inscription is made: "Emelyan Pugachev comes from the Cossack village of our Orthodox faith belongs to that faith, Ivan Prokhorov's son. This face is written in 1773, September 21 days. "

The dates shown in the portrait completely coincide with the time of E. Pugachev's stay in Ilek. Painting the portrait of the leader of the uprising was not an accidental phenomenon, it had a certain political meaning, namely: to show the portrait of his "muzhik" tsar, who bestowed the peasants with "eternal freedom". The restoration of the portrait revealed an interesting detail. It turned out that the portrait of Pugachev was painted on the portrait of Catherine II. The portrait of Catherine II was larger, as indicated by the cut edges of the canvas, and was pierced, probably deliberately, in ten places. The torn places were repaired, the portrait of Catherine II was primed and E. Pugachev was painted on it. It is quite possible that the portrait of Catherine II hung in the ataman office of the Iletsk town. Here, in a fit of hatred for the noble queen, he was pierced by the rebels, and then used as material for the image of the peasant Tsar Peter III - Emelyan Pugachev.

Pugachev was distinguished by endurance, courage and knowledge of military affairs. He was perfectly familiar with the artillery of the day. The clerk of the Military Collegium, Ivan Pochitalin, later testified during interrogation: "Pugachev himself knew the rule of how best to keep the artillery in order." Pugachev personally participated in battles with government troops, fighting in the front ranks.

The beginning of the uprising

The events of 1772–1773 paved the way for the organization of a rebel nucleus around E. Pugachev-Peter III. On July 2, 1773, in the Yaitsky town, a cruel sentence was carried out over the leaders of the January 1772 uprising. 16 people were punished with a whip and, after cutting out their nostrils and burning out hard labor signs, they were sent to eternal hard labor in the Nerchinsk factories. 38 people were punished with a whip and exiled to Siberia for settlement. A number of Cossacks were sent to the soldiers. Moreover, a large sum of money was collected from the participants in the uprising to compensate for the ruined property of Ataman Tambovtsev, General Traubenberg and others. The verdict caused a new outburst of indignation among the rank and file Cossacks.

Meanwhile, rumors about the appearance on Yaik of Emperor Peter III and his intention to stand for the ordinary Cossacks quickly spread in the farms and penetrated into the Yaitsky town. In August and the first half of September 1773, the first detachment of Yaik Cossacks gathered around Pugachev. On September 17, the first manifesto of Pugachev - Emperor Peter III - was solemnly announced to the Yaik Cossacks, who gave them the Yaik River "from the heights to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salary, and lead, and gunpowder, and grain provisions." Having unfurled the previously prepared banners, a detachment of rebels, numbering about 200 people, armed with guns, spears, bows, set out for Yaitsky town.

The main driving force of the uprising was the Russian peasantry in alliance with the oppressed peoples of Bashkiria and the Volga region. The downtrodden, obscure, completely illiterate peasantry without the leadership of the working class, which had just begun to form, could not create its own organization, could not work out its own program. The insurgents' demands were for the enthronement of a "good king" and the receipt of "eternal will." In the eyes of the rebels, such a tsar was the "peasant tsar", "tsar-father", "Emperor Peter Fedorovich", the former Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev.

On September 18, 1773, the first insurgent detachment, consisting mainly of the Yaitsky Cossacks and organized on the steppe farms near the Yaitsky town (now Uralsk), headed by E. Pugachev approached the Yaitsky town. The detachment consisted of about 200 people. An attempt to take possession of the town ended in failure. It contained a large detachment of regular troops with artillery. The second insurgent attack on September 19 was repulsed by cannons. The insurgent detachment, which replenished its ranks with Cossacks who had gone over to the side of the rebels, moved up the river. Yaiku and on September 20, 1773 stopped near the Iletsk Cossack town (now the village of Ilek).

Ilek village

In the 18th century, s. Ilek was called the Iletsk Cossack town. The inhabitants of the town - the Iletsk Cossacks - were part of the Yaitsk (Ural) Cossack army.

On the eve of the peasant war, the Iletsk town was a relatively large settlement. Academician PS Pallas, who drove through the Iletsk town in the summer of 1769, describes it as follows: “The left bank of the Yaik is deliberately high, and on it stands the Iletsk Cossack town, fortified with a four-cornered log wall and batteries ... In this Cossack town there are more than three hundred houses, and in the middle of it there is a wooden church. The local Cossacks can put up to five hundred troops and are numbered among the Yaik Cossacks, although they have no part in fishing rights and are forced to provide themselves with arable farming and cattle breeding.

On September 20, the rebels approached the Iletsk Cossack town and stopped a few kilometers from it. The insurgent detachment was an organized combat unit. Along the way from the Yaitsky town to the Iletsky town, a general circle was convened according to the old Cossack custom to select the chieftain and the Esauls.

The Yaik Cossack Andrei Ovchinnikov was elected ataman, Dmitry Lysov, also the Yaik Cossack, was elected colonel, the esaul and the cornet were also elected. Immediately, the first text of the oath was drawn up, and all the Cossacks and elected chiefs swore allegiance to “the most brilliant, most powerful, great sovereign to serve the Emperor Peter Fedorovich and obey in everything, not sparing his belly to the last drop of blood. "

Approaching the Iletsk town, the rebel detachment already numbered several hundred people and had three cannons taken from the outposts.

The accession of the Iletsk Cossacks to the uprising or their negative attitude towards it had great importance for a successful start of the uprising. Therefore, the rebels acted very carefully. Pugachev sends Andrei Ovchinnikov to the town, accompanied by a small number of Cossacks with two decrees of the same content: one of them he had to hand over to the chieftain of the town Lazar Portnov, the other to the Cossacks. Lazar Portnov was supposed to announce the decree at the Cossack circle; if he did not do this, then the Cossacks had to read it themselves.

The decree, written on behalf of Emperor Peter III, said: “And whatever you wish, you will not be denied all benefits and salaries; and your glory will not expire forever; and both you and your descendants be the first to be the first with me, the great, sovereign, to commit. And the salary, provisions, gunpowder and lead will always be enough from me. "

Even before the rebel detachment approached the Iletsk town, Portnov, having received a message from the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Colonel Simonov, about the beginning of the uprising, gathered a Cossack circle and read Simonov's order to take precautionary measures. By his order, the bridge connecting the Iletsk town with the right bank, along which the rebel detachment was moving, was dismantled.

At the same time, rumors about the appearance of Emperor Peter III and the freedoms granted to him reached the Cossacks of the town. The Cossacks were undecided. Andrei Ovchinnikov put an end to their hesitation. The Cossacks decided to meet with honor the rebel detachment and their leader E. Pugachev - Tsar Peter III and join the uprising.

On September 21, a dismantled bridge was established and a detachment of rebels solemnly entered the town, greeted with bells ringing and bread and salt. All Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Pugachev.

Pugachev's detachment stayed in Iletsk for two days. E. Pugachev himself lived in the house of the wealthy Iletsk Cossack Ivan Tvorogov.

Ataman of the town Lazar Portnov was hanged. The reason for the execution was the complaints of the Iletsk Cossacks that he "did great insults to them and ruined them."

A special regiment was formed from the Iletsk Cossacks. The Iletsk Cossack was appointed colonel of the Iletsk army, later one of the main traitors, Ivan Tvorogov. E. Pugachev appointed the competent Iletsk Cossack Maxim Gorshkov secretary. All the suitable artillery of the town was put in order and became part of the artillery of the rebels. E. Pugachev appointed the Yaik Cossack Fyodor Chumakov as the chief of artillery.

Two days later, the rebels, leaving the Iletsk town, crossed to the right bank of the Urals and moved up the Yaik in the direction of Orenburg, the military and administrative center of the huge Orenburg province, which included a huge territory from the Caspian in the south to the borders of the modern Yekaterinburg and Molotovsk regions - in the north. The goal of the rebels was the capture of Orenburg.

In 1900 s. Ilek was visited by the famous Russian writer V.G.Korolenko, collecting material on Pugachev and getting to know the places of the peasant uprising. Korolenko wanted to see the remains of an ancient fortress, a bridge on which the Iletsk Cossacks met Pugachev's detachment. And he turned to one of the connoisseurs of antiquity. “He was sitting in the courtyard of his house,” writes V. G. Korolenko in his essay, “over the very steep of the high Ural coast. We sat down on a bench next to each other. The river rolled its waves under our feet, we could see its sands, shallows, meadows ...

Ivan Yakovlevich smiled at my question.

This, he said, is almost the entire old fortress. Only this corner remained ... The rest was absorbed by Yaik Gorynych ... There, in the very middle of the river, was the house where I was born ... "

What remained under V.G.Korolenko from the Iletsk fortress is now eroded long ago by the turbid, fast spring waters of the Urals. On the site of the Iletsk town of the Pugachev era, there are now meadows and green coastal groves of the right bank of the Urals.

More than a hundred years ago, Lieutenant A. Ryabinin, the author of a detailed description of the Ural Cossack army, wrote down the legendary legend about Pugachev in Ilek. According to the legend, told to A. Ryabinin by one old man, Pugachev was conspired "from a bullet, from a knife, from poison and other dangers, that's why he was never even wounded." “When he began to enter the Iletsk town,” said the old man, “his gun did not want to go to the bridge. No matter how much they dragged her, no matter how much they harnessed the horses, they could not move it from the bridge. Then Pugachev got angry, ordered to whip the cannon with whips, and then chop off its ears and throw it into the Yaik-river. So what do you think, sir, - said the old man, turning to me, - as a cannon explodes in a human voice, only a groan and a rumble went all over the town. You don’t believe, ”he added, noticing that I smiled,“ ask the people, and now it’s sometimes in the water it moans so that it’s far away ”.

In an epic style, the same storyteller told A. Ryabinin the legend about Lazar Portnov. In the legend, actual events are intertwined with folk fantasy. “As Pugachev began to enter,” the old man said, “they left the town to meet him with icons and banners, with bread and salt. He accepted the bread and salt, venerated the icons and called the chieftain to him. And at that time Timofey Lazarevich was the chieftain, did you hear tea? Timofey Lazarevich did not go, but they brought him by force. So Pugachev began to tell him to bow to him, speak another, speak a third time. Lazarevich did not want to bow and reviled Pugachev with all sorts of nasty words. Then Pugachev said:

"I wanted to live with you, Timofei Lazarevich, in love and in harmony, I wanted to eat from the same cup, drink from the same ladle, I wanted to give you a brocade caftan, apparently not to happen, to that business." And then he ordered to hang Lazarevich in the place of the front, for fear of all his opponents. "

Lower egg distance

On September 24, a rebel detachment left the Iletsk town and moved up the Yaik. The first on the way of the detachment was the Rassypnaya fortress. In the era under consideration, on the entire right bank of the Urals from Orenburg to the Iletsk town, there were only four settlements: the fortresses of Chernorechenskaya (the village of Chernorechye, Pavlovsky district), Tatishchev (the village of Tatishchevo, Perevolotsk district), Nizhneozernaya (the village of Nizhneozernoye, Krasnokholmskiy district) and Rasnokholmsk (Rasypnoe village, Iletsk district).

All these fortresses were part of the so-called Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance of the Orenburg military line (this was the name of the system of fortifications along the Ural river). The main one was the Tatishchev fortress. The commander of this distance was also in it.

Between these fortresses, as well as along the entire line, on high elevated places along the banks of the Urals, observation posts were built at a certain distance from each other - pickets, outposts, lighthouses. Cossack teams were usually here only in the summer. On each of them there was a high observation tower, and next to it was a lighthouse, that is, a structure of poles wrapped in straw at the top or having a vessel with resin. In case of alarm, the guards set fire to the lighthouse. The pillar of flame was visible from a nearby lighthouse, the guards of which also set fire to their lighthouse. Thus, the news of alarm quickly reached the fortress, far ahead of the mounted Cossack galloping with a message to the fortress.

The names of the natural boundaries along the banks of the Urals - "Mayachnaya Gora", "Mayak" - indicate the location of the former Cossack observation posts with a "lighthouse".

The fortifications, which bore the loud name of fortresses, were very simple, uncomplicated. Built on the high right bank of the Urals, they were surrounded by an earthen rampart and a ditch. A wooden wall with a gate ran along the shaft. The fortress was armed with several cast-iron cannons. The state of these fortresses is perfectly conveyed by A. Pushkin in the description of the Belogorsk fortress in the story "The Captain's Daughter".

The population of the fortresses consisted of Cossacks and soldiers' teams, consisting mainly of elderly soldiers and invalids. The soldiers carried out garrison service, and the Cossacks had a guard, observation and reconnaissance service on the line. Cossacks carried for life military service... In addition, underwater duty along the line was also their responsibility.

The composition of the Cossack population of the fortresses consisted of a wide variety of elements: fugitive Russian peasants enrolled in the Cossacks, exiles settled at the fortresses, various service people transferred from the Volga fortified lines, retired soldiers, etc. The Cossack population consisted mostly of Russians, but in some fortresses there were many Cossack Tatars, immigrants from Bashkiria and the Volga region, included in the Cossack estate.

Like all the peasantry of Russia in the 18th century, the Cossack population of the fortresses of the Orenburg region experienced the same oppression of the feudal-serf regime. Therefore, the promise of "eternal liberty" proclaimed by E. Pugachev was as close and dear to the Cossacks as to the entire peasantry, and they readily joined the ranks of the rebels. The territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, organized in 1748, began from the Rassypnaya fortress.

Rassypnoe village

The Rassypnaya fortress was founded somewhat later than the Iletsk Cossack town. In the year of the beginning of the uprising, there were already 70 households in the Rassypnaya fortress. The settlers were attracted here by lakes rich in fish, abundant mowing and convenient places for arable farming.

Judging by the descriptions in the documents, the fortress had a quadrangular shape, was dug in with a moat, and fortified with an earthen rampart with a wooden fence built on it. Two gates were made in the rampart and the wooden wall, and two wooden bridges were thrown across the moat opposite the gate. Inside the fortress there was the commandant's house, a military storeroom, a wooden church and the houses of the inhabitants of the fortress.

The fortress was armed with several old cast-iron cannons. Before the approach of the insurgent detachment, the commandant of the fortress was Major Seconds Velovsky. The garrison of the fortress consisted of a company of soldiers and several dozen Cossacks, led by their chieftain.

On September 24, a detachment of E. Pugachev left the Iletsk town and, before reaching the Loose Fortress, a few kilometers from it, settled down for the night by the Zazhivnaya River. On the morning of September 25, the rebels appeared in sight of the fortress. They sent two Cossacks to the fortress with E. Pugachev's decree, which said that for going over to the side of the rebels, the Cossacks would be awarded "eternal liberty, rivers, seas, all benefits, salaries, provisions, gunpowder, lead, ranks and honor."

The commandant of the fortress Velovsky rejected the appeal to surrender and go over to the side of the rebels. The rebels began their assault. Velovsky opened cannon fire on the besiegers. The rebels answered with their guns, and then, rushing into the attack, smashed the gates of the fortress and broke into the fortress. One of his contemporaries in his notes indicates that the Cossacks during the assault went over to the side of the rebels and dismantled two walls of the fortress. Through the gap formed, the rebels broke into the fortress.

E. Pugachev later recalled in his testimony that Major Velovsky with two officers locked himself in the commandant's house and fired back from the windows. The Cossacks wanted to set fire to the house, but he forbade "... so as not to burn down the entire fortress." For armed resistance and for the losses inflicted, Velovsky and two officers were hanged. The Cossacks of the fortress and the soldiers swore allegiance to Tsar Peter III, the Tsar who marched in defense of the oppressed peasantry.

On the same day, taking cannons, gunpowder and cannonballs from the fortress and leaving a new chieftain in Lossypnoy, a detachment of rebels moved up the Yaik to the next fortress - Nizhneozernaya. Before reaching her, the rebels stopped for the night.

Situation in Orenburg

To understand the subsequent events, you need to remember what happened at that time in Orenburg, the residence of the Orenburg governor Reinsdorp. Let's turn to the archival documents. Thirteen thick leather-bound volumes contain Reinsdorp's correspondence from the period of the rebellion.

Gray sheets of old cursive writing take us back to the era of the uprising, and one after another there are pictures of the events on Yaik in the fall of 1773 ...

At the moment when E. Pugachev solemnly entered the Iletsk town and the Iletsk Cossacks swore allegiance to Peter III, the couriers of the commandant of the Loose Fortress Velovsky galloped with a report on the movement of the rebels to the Tatishchev Fortress. On the same day, the commandant of this fortress, the commander of the Nizhne-Yaitskaya distance, Colonel Yelagin, sent a report to Orenburg to Reinsdorp outlining Velovsky's report on the insurgents' approach to the Iletsk town. Elagin's report was received in Orenburg on September 22.

Contemporaries say that on September 22 at about 10 o'clock in the evening a courier rode up to Orenburg with a message about the capture of the Iletsk town (probably it was Elagin's courier) and came to Reinsdorp in the midst of a solemn ball held in honor of the coronation day of Catherine II.

The rumor about the beginning of the uprising spread throughout the city. Until that day, according to P. I. Rychkov, the city dwellers knew almost nothing about the uprising. At the same time, Governor Rainsdorp himself was aware of the impending events. On September 13, 1773, he received a decree from the State Military Collegium on the flight of Pugachev from the Kazan prison and taking measures to capture him, and on September 15 - a report from the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Colonel Simonov, dated September 10, about “a certain impostor wandering across the steppe,” in search of whom Simonov sent a small detachment. Finally, on September 21, Reinsdorp receives a report from Simonov on September 18 with the message that "the famous impostor is already in the meeting and this day, when he gets even more, he intends to visit the local city." These alarming news were known only to a narrow circle of the Orenburg military administration.

On September 21, Reinsdorp sends an order to Major General of Orenburg, Major General Wallenstern, to put the garrison on alert. In the following days, Reinsdorp received additional messages about the movement of the rebels up the Yaik and, in particular, about their capture of the Iletsk town.

While E. Pugachev was in the Iletsk town and was preparing to march up the Yaik, Reinsdorp also formed military forces to defeat the rebels. On September 23, he sent an order to the commandant, Major Semyonov, to Stavropol to send 500 Stavropol Kalmyks to Yaitsky town with an order to break them up in the event of a meeting with the rebels.

On September 24, Reinsdorp sent from Orenburg to meet Pugachev the corps of Baron Bilov, consisting of 410 people, including 150 Orenburg Cossacks under the command of the centurion Timofei Padurov.

On the same day, Reinsdorp sent an order to the Seitov Sloboda on the preparation of 300 horse and armed Tatars, ready to immediately, by order, march to Orenburg; On September 25, an order is sent to Ufa: to collect up to 500 Bashkirs and send them to the Iletsk town to suppress the uprising; On September 26, an order was sent to the commandant of the Yaitsky town, Lieutenant Colonel-Simonov, to send a military detachment under the command of Major Naumov up the Yaik, following the detachment of E. Pugachev and towards the detachment of Brigadier Bilov.

Reinsdorp's plan was as follows: to strangle the uprising, trapping the rebels in a ring with the help of detachments from Orenburg, Yaitsky town and Stavropol.

The method of bribery was not forgotten either. Reinsdorp's decrees promised 500 rubles for the capture of Pugachev alive, and 250 rubles for the delivery of the dead.

With secret letters dated September 24, Reinsdorp informs the Astrakhan and Kazan governors about the beginning of the uprising, and on September 25 sends a report to Catherine II about the outbreak of the uprising and the dispatch of Bilov's corps.

On September 25, when the rebels stormed the Loose Fortress and then marched on the Nizhneozernaya fortress, the detachment, Brigadier Bilov, replenishing their ranks and artillery with soldiers and cannons from the Chernorechenskaya and Tatishchevaya fortresses, arrived late in the evening at the Chesnokovsky outpost located between the Nizhneozernaya fortresses and Tatischeva's fortresses. It was probably located on the site of the modern village of Chesnokovka, Krasnokholmsky District. Here Brigadier Bilov receives a report from the commandant of the Nizhneozernaya fortress, Major Kharlov, written on September 25, about the capture of the Rassypnaya fortress by the rebels, about the appearance of rebel forces near Nizhneozernaya and a request for help. Frightened by this report, Bilov, fearing the encirclement and apparently not relying on his command, having stood indecisively for several hours at the outpost, turned back to the fortress to Tatishcheva. Bilov's retreat made it easier for the rebels to capture the fortress of Nizhneozernaya.

The village of Nizhneozernoe

Nizhneozernaya fortress was founded in 1754, that is, just 20 years before the start of the uprising. In the era of the uprising, there were about 70 households in the Lower Lake Fortress. In addition to the excellent natural protection - a high steep cliff from the side of the river, the fortress, according to the surviving descriptions, was surrounded by an earthen rampart, dug in and had a log wall.

As in other fortresses along the river. Ural, inside Nizhneozernaya there was a commandant's house, an earthen powder magazine, a military warehouse, houses of Cossacks, soldiers and a wooden church. The fortress was armed with several old cast-iron cannons. The fortress garrison consisted of a small detachment of soldiers and Cossacks. Major Kharlov was the commandant of the fortress.

Late in the evening of September 25, the commandant of the fortress learned from the prisoners captured by the scouts he had sent about the capture of Rasypnaya and that the rebel detachment was only 7 versts from Nizhneozernaya.

Major Kharlov sent a report with this information to Baron Bilov, who was standing with the troops at the Chesnokovsky outpost, after which Bilov retreated to the Tatishchev fortress.

Rumors about the decrees of the leader of the uprising E. Pugachev, granting the Cossacks and all working people "eternal freedom", quickly reached the fortress of Nizhneozernaya. The proclamation of "eternal liberty" satisfied the cherished desires of the Cossacks. On the same night (from 25 to 26 September) 50 Cossacks went to the rebels. The soldiers who remained in the fortress had no desire to fight: the slogans of the uprising were also close and dear to them.

At dawn on September 26, the rebels launched an attack on the fortress. Kharlov opened fire from the cannons. The rebels answered. The exchange of fire lasted for about two hours. Then the rebels rushed to the assault, broke the gates and broke into the fortress. In the ensuing skirmish, Kharlov, officers and several soldiers were killed. According to other reports, Major Kharlov, ensign Figner and Kabalerov, clerk Skopin and corporal Bikbai were hanged.

According to the recording of A.S. Pushkin, made while passing through the Nizhneozernaya fortress, Bikbai was hanged by E. Pugachev for espionage. AS Pushkin's extracts from the archives indicate: "Pugachev in the Nizhneozernaya fortress hanged the commandant for drowning gunpowder."

After the fortress passed into the hands of the rebels, its inhabitants swore allegiance to E. Pugachev, and the soldiers were enlisted in the ranks of the rebels.

On the same day, taking the guns, gunpowder and shells and leaving their commandant in the fortress, the detachment of E. Pugachev moved further up the river. Ural to the Tatishchev fortress (now the village of Tatishchevo) and, having walked about 12 miles, spent the night at the Suharnikov farms.

A.S. Pushkin's travel notebook contains several entries made by him during a short stop in the village. All of them were used in The History of Pugachev. Three entries refer directly to the personality of E. Pugachev. Here is one of them.

“Pugachev came in the morning. The Cossack began to guard against him. " "Your tsarist majesty, do not drive up, they will kill you unequally from a cannon." "You are an old man," Pugachev answered him, "do cannons pour on the tsars?"

It is interesting that the last entry of A.S. Pushkin almost literally coincides with the testimony of one of E. Pugachev's associates, the Yaik Cossack Timofei Myasnikov. Timofey Myasnikov showed:

“He, Myasnikov, like others, served him faithfully; at the same time, everyone was encouraged not only by rivers, forests, fishing and other liberties, but also by his courage and agility. For, when it happened (to be) on attacks to the city of Orenburg, or on some battles against military teams, then (Pugachev); he was always ahead himself, not a little afraid of the firing of either their guns or their guns. And when some of his well-wishers sometimes persuaded him to take care of his stomach, Pugachev would say, smiling: “The cannon will not kill the tsar! Where is it seen that the cannon would kill the king? "

This curious coincidence speaks of the reality of the legend written down by A.S. Pushkin, possibly from a still living participant in the uprising. Evidently, E. Pugachev used this half-joking expression more than once. And the case transmitted to AS Pushkin in Nizhneozernaya and included by him in the "History of Pugachev" could really take place during the capture of Nizhneozernaya fortress on September 26, 1773.

In 1890, the 80-year-old Cossack from Nizhneozerninsk E. A. Donskov, whose grandfather served as a clerk for E. Pugachev, said that after the uprising, “a rigorous check was carried out. If anyone said: "I served the Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich," they were not persecuted, but if they said: "I was at Pugach's," they were exiled, punished with sticks and, in some cases, they were beaten to death. "

The village of Tatishchevo

The village of Tatishchevo is one of the first Russian settlements-fortresses on the banks of the Yaik. It was founded in the summer of 1736 at the mouth of the Kamysh-Samara river by the first head of the Orenburg expedition, IK Kirilov, and was named the Kamysh-Samara fortress.

The choice of the site for the foundation of the fortress was not accidental. A short portage to the upper reaches of the river began from here. Samara (from the village of Tatishchev to the village of Perevolotsk, located on the Samara river, only 25 kilometers), through this place there was a road down the river. Ural.

In 1738, Kirilov's successor V. N. Tatishchev strengthens the fortress with a shaft, a moat and calls it by his own name.

With the founding of fortresses along the Urals (Chernorechenskaya, Nizhneozernaya and Rassypnaya), the Tatishchev fortress acquired an important strategic importance as a junction point from where the roads branched up and down the river. Ural and to the west - along the river. Samara. Possession of it provided control over these roads. Therefore, throughout the 18th century, Tatishchev Fortress was considered the main fortress of the Lower Yaitskaya distance. Its subordination included the fortresses Chernorechenskaya, Nizhne-Ozernaya, Rassypnaya and Perevolotskaya.

In view of the important strategic importance of the Tatishchev fortress, its fortifications were somewhat better than in other fortresses at a distance: it had an earthen rampart with a moat, a log wall, batteries for cannons, and better artillery than in other fortresses. There were warehouses with ammunition, provisions, artillery supplies.

Academician PS Pallas, who drove through the Tatishchev fortress in 1769, that is, four years before the start of the uprising, describes the fortifications of the fortress as follows: “It was built in an irregular quadrangle, surrounded by a log wall, slingshots and reinforced with batteries at the corners”.

The population in the Tatishchevaya fortress was greater than in other fortresses along Yaik. According to PI Rychkov and PS Pallas, in the 60s of the 18th century there were up to 200 households in it. Pallas emphasizes that "this place in Orenburg can be called the largest, most populous of all the fortresses along the Yaitskaya line."

During his trip to the places of the Pugachev uprising, A.S. Pushkin twice in September 1833 drove through the village. Tatishchevo: on the road from Samara to Orenburg and on the road from Orenburg to Uralsk.

In memory of the visit to the village by the great Russian poet, a memorial plaque was erected in Tatishchev.

The Belogorsk fortress from Pushkin's story "The Captain's Daughter" is connected with the village of Tatishchevo. A.S. Pushkin timed the location of the fortress described in the story to the location of the Tatishcheva fortress. “The Belogorsk fortress,” we read in the novel, “was located forty versts from Orenburg. The road went along the steep bank of the Yaik ... (chapter "The Fortress"). Nizhneozernaya was about twenty-five versts from our fortress (chapter "Pugachevshchina") ". Indeed, according to the "Topography of the Orenburg province" by P. I. Rychkov, which A. Pushkin used when working on the "History of Pugachev", the Tatishchev fortress is shown 54 miles from Orenburg and 28 miles from Nizhneozernaya.

The village of Tatishchevo in the history of the first period of the peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev occupies a special place. Two major events of the first period of the uprising (September 1773 - March 1774) are associated with it: the brilliant success of E. Pugachev and his associates in the assault on the Tatishchev Fortress on September 27, 1773, which ended in the seizure of the fortress and the transfer of its garrison to the side of the peasant army, and the defeat of the peasant army on March 22, 1774, suffered by it in a battle with government troops under the command of Prince P. Golitsyn, which decided the fate of the uprising within the territory of the modern Orenburg region and moved the uprising to Bashkiria and to the areas of the right bank of the Volga.

This is how the events unfolded on September 27, 1773, when the rebels approached the Tatishchev Fortress. Its garrison after the return of Bilov's detachment amounted to at least a thousand people. The fortress was armed with 13 guns.

At dawn on September 27, the patrols of the rebels appeared in front of the fortress. A. S. Pushkin in his "History of Pugachev" reports that the rebels "drove up to the walls, persuading the garrison to disobey the boyars and surrender voluntarily."

E. Pugachev recalled in his testimony that even before the rebel detachment approached the fortress, he had sent a manifesto to the Tatishchev fortress.

The rebels also made an attempt to enter into negotiations with the garrison, sending a group of Cossacks to the fortress for this purpose. A group of Cossacks also left the fortress for negotiations. The rebels urged them to surrender voluntarily, saying that Tsar Peter Fedorovich himself was going with the rebels.

When they returned, the Cossacks passed this on to Baron Bilov. The latter ordered to tell the rebels that all this is "lies". The delegation of the rebels replied: "when you persist so, then afterwards do not blame us." The negotiations were broken off. The fortress, which had stopped the cannon fire during the negotiations, again began to fire on the rebel detachments. The artillery of the rebels answered from their own guns. Colonel Elagin suggested that Brigadier Bilov leave the fortress and fight outside its walls. Bilov refused, fearing that the Cossacks and soldiers would go over to the side of the rebels. The cannon duel lasted eight hours.

In order to impede the movement of the rebels up the Kamysh-Samara River, Brigadier Bilov sends a detachment of Orenburg Cossacks under the command of centurion Padurov before the storming of the fortress. Detachment Padurov completely went over to the side of the rebels.

The assault on the fortress begins. On the one hand, the rebels attacked, led by the Yaik Cossack Andrei Vitoshnov, on the other hand, Pugachev himself led the attack. The attack was repulsed, but the sharpness and resourcefulness of Pugachev came to the rescue. Near the wooden wall of the fortress stood stables with stacks of hay stacked beside them. E. Pugachev ordered to set them on fire. The weather was windy, smoke and flames drove to the fortress.

Soon the wooden wall of the fortress caught fire, and from it the fire spread to the houses inside the fortress. Cossacks, soldiers who lived in the fortress with their houses, rushed to extinguish the fire and save property. Taking advantage of the confusion, the rebels broke into the fortress and took possession of it. During the storming of the fortress, Brigadier Bilov and Colonel Elagin were killed. Soldiers and Cossacks offered no resistance.

Having entered the fortress, Pugachev ordered to extinguish the fire. The captured soldiers were taken out of the fortress and sworn in. In the Tatishcheva fortress, the rebels seized a significant supply of provisions and money, replenished their ranks and especially artillery, capturing, in the words of PI Rychkov, "the best artillery with its supplies and servants."

The number of E. Pugachev's detachment after the capture of the Tatishcheva fortress reached over 2,000 people.

The transfer of the Tatishchev fortress into the hands of the rebels was of great importance for the further development of the uprising. The way to Orenburg was opened. The Chernorechenskaya fortress, which was on the way to Orenburg, could not hold back the movement of the rebels. As early as September 28, the garrison of the fortress was evacuated to Orenburg, abandoning provisions. Only three dozen miles of straight road separated the detachment of E. Pugachev from Orenburg.

Several legends and stories about Pugachev are associated with the village of Tatishcheva.

A.S. Pushkin, passing twice through Tatishchevo during his trip to Orenburg and Uralsk in September 1833, made the following entry in his travel book: “In Tatischeva, Pugachev, having come a second time, asked the ataman if there was food in the fortress. Ataman, at the preliminary request of the old Cossacks, who feared hunger, replied no. Pugachev himself went to inspect the shops and, finding them full, hung the chieftain at the outposts ... "There were indeed stores of provisions in Tatishcheva, and after the suppression of the uprising, the Orenburg Provincial Committee tried to collect provisions taken from the warehouse by the residents of the fortress" at the permission "of E. Pugachev.

In the same travel notes of AS Pushkin, we read another short note characterizing the personality of E. Pugachev: "In Tatischeva, Pugachev hanged a Yaik Cossack for drunkenness."

A curious legend about E. Pugachev's stay in the Tatishchev Fortress was recorded in 1939 from a resident of the village. Arkhipovka, Sakmarsky district, I. I. Mozhartsev, two great-grandfathers of which, according to him, participated in the uprising of E. Pugachev.

According to I.I.Mozhartsev's story, E. Pugachev helped build a hut in Tatishcheva for the widow Ignatiha and married her off. I remembered Ignatikh E. Pugacheva until the grave. “And not only Ignatiha remembered the deceased with a kind word. Pugachev was a good man before the peasants, ”concludes I. Mozhartsev.

The village of Chernorechye

The seizure of the Tatishcheva fortress opened two roads for Pugachev and his detachment: down the river. Samara - in the Volga region, in areas densely populated by serfs, and up the river. Urals - to the city of Orenburg - the administrative center of the huge Orenburg province. Pugachev and his associates chose the second path. On the way to Orenburg there was the Chernorechenskaya fortress (now the village of Chernorechye, Pavlovsky district), the last fortress in the Urals before Orenburg.

S. Chernorechye was founded in about the same years as Tatishchevo. In 1742, in the Chernorechenskaya fortress, there were already 30 huts and 9 dugouts with 153 inhabitants. Later, the Orenburg authorities settled here exiles, exiled to the Orenburg region for permanent residence. In 1773, that is, in the year of the uprising, it had 58 households.

The inhabitants of the fortress were servicemen and retired Cossacks, servicemen and retired soldiers and exiles. The commandant of the fortress at that time was Major Krause. After the brigadier Bilov, heading towards the rebels, took most of the soldiers from the garrison of the fortress, only 137 people remained in it. During the days of the uprising, between the Chernorechenskaya and Tatishcheva fortresses, there was the only settlement - a farm belonging to P.I.Rychkov. It was located on the site of the present s. Rychkova. There was a Cossack guard post near the farm. After E. Pugachev took the Tatishchev Fortress, Rychkov's serfs and Cossacks joined the rebels. The inhabitants of the Chernorechenskaya fortress and its garrison were also waiting. Pugachev.

On September 28, Major Krause received an order from Reinsdorp to abandon the fortress in case of imminent danger. On the same day, claiming to be sick, he left for Orenburg, leaving the fortress under the command of Lieutenant Ivanov. The drumming informed the inhabitants of the fortress about the evacuation. But only a few residents left for Orenburg, while most remained and waited for Pugachev's arrival.

On September 29, E. Pugachev entered the Chernorechenskaya fortress. The inhabitants of the fortress solemnly greeted Pugachev and swore allegiance to him.

With the occupation of the Chernorechenskaya fortress, the road to Orenburg was opened. Only 18 versts along a straight road separated Orenburg from the Chernorechenskaya fortress. With a swift, rapid offensive, the rebels could capture Orenburg, the fortifications of which were in the same neglected state as in the Chernorechenskaya fortress. A contemporary of these events reports that they entered the city on carts through an earthen rampart and a moat without any difficulty, and the city gates did not have constipation. The rebels missed this opportunity. After spending the night in the Chernorechenskaya fortress, they moved not directly to Orenburg, but bypassing it, up the river. Ural and its tributary Sakmara, to Seitov Sloboda and Sakmara Cossack town. The rebels hoped to replenish their ranks with Tatars and Sakmar Cossacks. Kargaly Tatars came to the Chernorechenskaya fortress to invite E. Pugachev to the Seitov settlement.

During the uprising, untouched steppes were spread between the Chernorechenskaya fortress and the Seitovaya settlement, and dense coastal forests grew near the Urals and Sakmara. Only above the mouth of the river. Sakmary, opposite the Berdskaya settlement, there were several farmsteads. They belonged to the Orenburg higher authorities and nobles: Reinsdorp, Myasoedov, Sukin, Tevkelev, etc.

Moving to the Chernorechenskaya fortress, the rebels entered the farmstead and took away the property of the nobles. The serfs living on the farmsteads joined the ranks of the growing rebel army. The rebels also visited the Reinsdorp farm, where there was a large house of 12 rooms, furnished with luxurious furniture. A contemporary reports that E. Pugachev, entering the rooms of Reinsdorp's house, said to his comrades-in-arms: “This is how my governors live so gloriously, and what they need such chambers for. I myself, as you can see, live in a simple hut. " With these words, Pugachev wanted to emphasize that if the nobles build luxurious mansions with funds squeezed out of the peasantry, then he, the peasant Tsar Peter III, fights for the interests of the people, does not need luxurious mansions and is content with a simple peasant hut.

On the way to Seitova Sloboda, E. Pugachev's detachment spent the night at Tevkelev's farm and on October 1 set out to Seitovaya Sloboda.

Kargala village

By the time of the peasant uprising led by E. Pugachev, Seitova Sloboda, one of the first settlements in the Orenburg region, was a fairly large settlement. The population of the settlement consisted of several thousand people. The bulk of the population of the settlement was made up of Tatars - peasants, a smaller part - merchants. The peasants were engaged in cattle breeding, agriculture, various crafts and were hired by merchants as workers, clerks. Merchants conducted large trade with Central Asia and Kazakhstan, rented and bought land from the Bashkirs for the farm.

The approach of E. Pugachev's detachment to Seitovaya Sloboda was not a surprise to its population. Rumors of the beginning of the uprising were confirmed by an order from Reinsdorp. On September 26, by order of Reinsdorp, a detachment of 300 men set out from Kargaly to help Brigadier Bilov, but after learning about the capture of the Tatishcheva fortress by the rebels, he returned from the road. On September 28, a military council took place in Orenburg, which decided to transfer all Tatars from the settlement to Orenburg. But only a very insignificant part of the population left the settlement for Orenburg, mainly merchants and wealthy peasants. The majority remained in the settlement and sent their representatives to Pugachev in the Chernorechenskaya fortress with an invitation to come to the Seitov settlement.

On October 1, the population of Seitovaya Sloboda solemnly greeted E. Pugachev, who visited here several times and later, coming from his headquarters - Berdskaya Sloboda.

The population of the Kargalinskaya settlement took an active part in the uprising. The inhabitants of the settlement formed a special regiment of the Kargaly Tatars. He fought bravely in the ranks of the rebel army near Orenburg. PI Rychkov, in his notes on the siege of Orenburg, writes that in the battle on January 9, 1774, near Orenburg, the Kargaly Tatars "very bravely let loose." The inhabitants of the settlement provided the rebels with food supplies, sending him to the camp in Berdy.

Considering the significant role of the Kargalinskaya settlement in the uprising, E. Pugachev and the rebels called it Petersburg.

There were literate people among the Kargaly Tatars. With their help, on the day of E. Pugachev's arrival in Kargala, a decree was drawn up in the Tatar language, addressed to the Bashkirs, and sent to Bashkiria. Written with great feeling and enthusiasm, the decree called the Bashkirs to an uprising and bestowed every liberty: "lands, waters, forests, residences, grasses, rivers, fish, bread, laws, arable lands, bodies, monetary salaries, lead and gunpowder." “And arrive like the steppe animals,” the decree said, ie. live as freely as wild animals in the steppe.

On October 2, the insurgent detachment moved up the river. Sakmare in the Sakmara Cossack town. From s. Kargaly to the village. Sakmarsky 16 kilometers.

Sakmarskoe village

In the village of Sakmarskoye, the oldest Russian settlement in the region, there were over 150 households during the uprising.

The news of the uprising, of course, quickly reached the Sakmara town. They were confirmed by the order of Reinsdorp on September 24, who ordered the chieftain of the town Danila Donskov to send 120 Cossacks up the river. Yaiku for guard duty. Ataman Donskov carried out the order. A small number of service Cossacks remained in the town. A few days later, Reinsdorp ordered the rest of the service Cossacks with all the artillery and military supplies to arrive in Orenburg, break the bridge over Sakmara, and the entire population of the town to move to the Krasnogorsk fortress. Service Cossacks with the ataman, with guns and military supplies moved to Orenburg. All the rest of the population - retired Cossacks, Cossack families and others - remained at home and did not allow the bridge over the river to be destroyed. Sakmaru. The inhabitants of the town were waiting for Pugachev.

On the night of October 1 to 2, prominent participants in the uprising Maxim Shigaev and Pyotr Mitryasov arrived in the Sakmara town with a group of Cossacks and in a Cossack circle read out the decree of E. Pugachev - Tsar Peter III. Sakmara Cossacks joined the uprising. On October 2, the population of the town greeted Pugachev with great honor and took the oath. After taking the oath, a detachment led by Pugachev entered the Sakmara town to the sound of bells ringing.

Sakmara Cossacks took an active part in the peasant war. During interrogations, E. Pugachev testified that the Sakmarian Cossacks "were inseparable with him." Of the Sakmarian inhabitants, a prominent participant in the uprising was the Cossack Ivan Borodin, a village clerk.

Pugachev did not stop at the Sakmara town. On the same day, the rebels crossed the bridge over the river. Sakmaru and camped on her left side. They stayed here until October 4. Copper mines were located near the Sakmara town. They belonged to the miners Tverdyshev and Myasnikov, who owned copper and iron works in Bashkiria. Copper ore mined at the mines was sent to Preobrazhensky, Voskresensky, Verkhotsk and other copper smelters. With the arrival of Pugachev in the village. Sakmara miners quit their jobs and joined the uprising.

An interesting episode took place near the Sakmara town. On October 3, a man of about 60 years old came to the camp, in a torn dress, with torn out nostrils and hard labor marks on his cheeks. He went up to Pugachev, who was standing next to the Yaik Cossack Maxim Shigaev, one of the leaders of the uprising. “What kind of person? - E. Pugachev asked Shigaeva. “This is Khlopusha, the poorest person,” answered Shigaev. Shigaev knew Khlopusha, since he was imprisoned with him in the Orenburg prison, having been arrested for participating in the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks in 1772. E. Pugachev ordered to feed Khlopushu. Khlopusha took out four sealed envelopes from his bosom and handed them to E. Pugachev. These were the orders of the Orenburg authorities to the Yaik, Orenburg and Iletsk Cossacks to stop the uprising, to seize E. Pugachev and bring him to Orenburg.

Khlopusha confessed to Pugachev that he had been sent by Governor Reinsdorv to convey orders to the Cossacks, dissuade them from the uprising, burn gunpowder and shells, rivet the guns and hand Pugachev over to the Orenburg authorities. Having gone over to the side of the rebels, Khlopusha eventually becomes one of Pugachev's closest assistants. At the Ural mining factories, where he is sent, he raises workers, Bashkirs, organizes the casting of cannons and cannonballs. Pugachev appoints him colonel of the detachment of the Ural workers.

From the camp near the Sakmarsky town, E. Pugachev sent a decree to the commandant of the Krasnogorsk fortress, the Cossacks sent from the Sakmarsky town to carry out guard duty in the Krasnogorsk and Verkhneozernaya fortresses, and "people of all titles." The decree called for serving the new, peasant tsar "faithfully and invariably to the last drop of blood." For the service, the people and the Cossacks complained "with a cross and a beard, a river and a land, herbs and seas and a monetary salary, and grain provisions, and lead, and gunpowder, and eternal freedom."

The decree to the Sakmar Cossacks, having become widespread, raised the peasants, Cossacks, workers, oppressed nationalities against the nobles and landowners.

On October 4, E. Pugachev left the camp near Sakmarsky town and went to Orenburg. Before reaching the city, the insurgent army stopped at Kamyshovoye Lake, near the Berdskaya settlement, for the night. The inhabitants of the Berdskaya settlement joined the rebels. The insurgent army consisted of about 2500 people, of which about 1500 Yaik, Iletsk, Orenburg Cossacks, 300 soldiers, 500 Kargaly Tatars. The rebels had about 20 cannons and 10 barrels of gunpowder.

Orenburg

Orenburg in the era of the uprising was the administrative center of the vast Orenburg province, on the territory of which such Western European states as Belgium, Holland, France could freely settle.

Orenburg province included in its territory the modern West Kazakhstan, Aktobe, Kustanai, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions, part of the Samara and Yekaterinburg regions, the territory of Bashkiria.

At the same time, Orenburg was the main fortress on the border military line along the river. Yaiku and the center of exchange trade with Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the south-east of Russia.

The capture of Orenburg was of great importance for the further course of the uprising: firstly, it was possible to take weapons and various military equipment from the warehouses of the fortress, and secondly, the capture of the capital of the province would raise the authority of the rebels among the population. That is why they tried so persistently and stubbornly to seize Orenburg.

In terms of its size, Orenburg during the Pugachev uprising was many times smaller than the present city of Orenburg. Its entire area was located in the central part of the city of Orenburg, adjacent to the r. Ural, and was 677 fathoms long (about 3300 meters) and 570 fathoms wide (about 1150 meters).

Being the main fortress in the southeast of Russia, Orenburg had more solid fortifications than other fortresses along the river. Yaiku. The city was surrounded by a high earthen rampart in the form of an oval, fortified with 10 bastions and 2 semi-bastions. The height of the rampart reached 4 meters and more, and the width - 13 meters. The total length of the shaft from its outer side was 5 versts. In some places, the rampart was faced with slabs of red sandstone. On the outer side of the rampart, there was a ditch about 4 meters deep and 10 meters wide.

The city had four gates: Sakmarskie (where Sovetskaya Street adjoins the Square of the House of Soviets), Orskie (at the intersection of Pushkinskaya and Studencheskaya streets). intersection of M. Gorky and Burzyantsev streets).

Academician Falk, who visited Orenburg in 1771, reports that the streets of the city are unpaved and in spring there is "great mud" and in summer "heavy dust".

With the exception of a few churches, the governor's house, the building of the provincial chancellery, the Gostiny Dvor and some other buildings, the buildings of the city were wooden.

Gostiny Dvor, a city bazaar surrounded by a massive brick wall, stood out among the city buildings. In appearance, it resembled a fortress rather than a place of trade.

On the east side, the town was adjoined by the village of Orenburg Cossacks - Forstadt. The houses of the Cossacks began under the very walls of the fortress. A Cossack church stood on the steepest bank of the high bank of the Urals. Apart from Vorstadt, the city had no other suburbs. Boundless steppes spread beyond the city walls. Academician Falk points out that in the city of Orenburg in 1770 there were 1533 philistine houses.

For trade purposes, a vast exchange yard was built a few versts from Orenburg.

This was the appearance of Orenburg during the peasant war of 1773-1775. On September 28, Reinsdorp called a council of war, where it turned out that the city was able to field about 3,000 people, of which about 1,500 were soldiers. The fortress had about a hundred cannons. With the approach of the insurgent forces to Orenburg, the fortress began to be prepared for defense: the Cossacks of Vorstadt were transferred to the fortress, the moat was cleared of clay and sand, the ramparts were straightened, the fortress was surrounded by slingshots and manure was prepared for blocking the city gates. On the rampart of the fortress, already on October 2, there were 70 cannons. On October 4, the garrison of the fortress was replenished with a detachment of 626 people with 4 cannons, who arrived from the Yaitsky town at the request of Reinsdorp.

The fortress and the population of the city did not have sufficient food supplies. The time for its preparation was lost.

It was martial state Orenburg at the time of Pugachev's approach under the city walls.

At about noon on October 5, 1773, the main forces of the rebel army appeared in sight of Orenburg and began to round the city from the northeastern side, reaching Vorstadt. The alarm sounded in the city.

Small groups of daring riders approached the city close, offering residents to obey Tsar Peter III and surrender the city without a fight. The Yaitsk Cossack Ivan Solodovnikov galloped up to the fortress shaft and, deftly bending down from the saddle, stuck it in. ground a peg with a pinched sheet of paper. It was Pugachev's decree addressed to the Orenburg garrison. E. Pugachev called on the soldiers to lay down their arms and go over to the side of the uprising. Cannons thundered from the ramparts. The rebels bypassed the deserted, partially destroyed Vorstadt and, descending from the high bank into the valley of the Urals, set up a temporary camp near Lake Korovye stall, 5 versts from Orenburg.

Pugachev in Vorstadt near the St. George Church. Reproduction of a painting by Petunin

Smoke and flames rose over the city. It was the Vorstadt, set on fire by order of Reinsdorp. Only a Cossack church on the banks of the Urals survived the fire. During the assault on Orenburg, the rebels used it as a place for a battery: the cannons were installed on the porch and the bell tower. The rebels fired from the bell tower and rifles.

The approach of the rebels to Orenburg ended the first, initial stage of the peasant uprising and the next stage began - the period of the siege of Orenburg and the development of the local uprising into a popular war.

A detachment of 1,500 men set out from Orenburg under the command of Major Naumov. The Cossacks and soldiers of the detachment acted with great reluctance. According to Major Naumov, he saw "shyness and fear in his subordinates." After two hours of fruitless firefight, the detachment returned to the city.

On October 7, Reinsdorp convened a council of war. It decided the question of what tactics to adhere to in the fight against the rebels: to act against them "defensively" or "offensively". Most of the members of the military council were in favor of "defensive" tactics. The Orenburg military authorities were afraid of the transfer of the garrison troops to the side of Pugachev. They believed that it was better to sit outside the walls of the fortress under the cover of the fortress artillery.

So the siege of Orenburg began, which lasted for six months, until the end of March 1774. The garrison of the fortress during its sorties could not defeat the peasant troops. The assaults of the rebels were repelled by the artillery of the city, but in open combat, success always remained on the side of the peasant army.

On the morning of October 12, troops under the command of Naumov left the city and engaged in a fierce battle with the rebels. Pugachev, having learned in advance about the impending sortie, chose a comfortable position. "The battle," a contemporary noted, "was stronger than before, and our artillery alone fired about five hundred shots, but the villains fired much more of their cannons, acted ... with greater audacity than before." The battle lasted for about four hours. It started to rain and snow. Fearing encirclement, Naumov's corps returned to the city, having suffered losses of 123 people.

On October 18, the insurgent army left its original camp on the Cossack meadows near the Cow Stable Lake east of Orenburg and moved to Mount Mayak, and then, due to the early cold weather, to the Berdskaya Sloboda, located seven miles from the city and numbering about two hundred households ...

On October 22, Pugachev with all his forces (about 2000 people) again approached Orenburg, set up batteries under the ridge and began an uninterrupted cannonade. Shells also flew from the city wall. This powerful artillery firefight lasted more than 6 hours. Resident of Orenburg Ivan Osipov recalled that on this day people "from cannonballs and extraordinary fear almost did not find a place in their homes." However, this very strong "aspiration to the city" did not lead to the capture of Orenburg, and the rebels retreated to Berda.

Reinsdorp's attempt to defeat the rebel army and occupy the Berdskaya settlement ended in complete failure. On January 13, 1774, the Orenburg garrison suffered a complete defeat. The rebels utterly defeated the government troops, which retreated in panic under the cover of fortress artillery. The troops lost 13 guns, 281 killed and 123 wounded.

After this battle, the Orenburg garrison did not make a single serious attempt to defeat the rebel army. Reinsdorp limited himself to one passive defense. On the other hand, the fortifications of the city, significant artillery with a sufficient supply of military supplies, as well as the weak armament of the rebels, their lack of fortress artillery and the necessary military knowledge to conduct a siege of the fortress, prevented the seizure of Orenburg by the rebels.

Meanwhile, there were few provisions in the city. Pugachev knew this and decided to starve out the city.

Already in January, there was an acute shortage of food in Orenburg; there was also no fodder for the Cossack and artillery horses. Prices for food products have risen many times. The city was on the verge of surrender. Only the government units arrived in time to prevent the capture of Orenburg by peasant troops.

Such a long "standing" of the Main Insurgent Army near Orenburg was considered by some big mistake, a gross miscalculation by Pugachev. Catherine II herself wrote in December 1773: "... One can be honored for the happiness that these canals have become attached for two whole months to Orenburg and further where they went." Probably, Pugachev could not act otherwise, the very logic of the spontaneously developing events of the peasant war, the locality of the aspirations and actions of the rebels, consisting mainly of residents of the Orenburg province, led to the desire to take Orenburg.

Expansion of the area of ​​the uprising and the combat successes of the peasant army

While the siege of Orenburg was underway, the uprising was growing with extraordinary speed. In October 1773, the fortress along the river. Samara-Perevolotskaya, Novosergievskaya, Totskaya, Sorochinskaya - passed into the hands of the rebels. The serf peasantry, national minorities of the Orenburg region, and primarily the Bashkirs, join the uprising.

An example of the inclusion of the serf peasantry of the province in the Pugachev uprising is the speech of the inhabitants of the villages of Lyakhovo, Karamzine (Mikhailovka), Zhdanov, Putilov, located to the north of Buzuluk. On the night of October 17, a mounted rebel detachment, consisting of Yaik Cossacks, Kalmyks and Chuvash-newly baptized neighboring villages, galloped into the village of Lyakhovo, numbering 30 people. They announced that they had been sent from the armies by Tsar Peter Fedorovich to destroy the landowners' houses and give the peasants freedom. Having entered the landlord's courtyard, they "plundered all their belongings and stole the cattle", and the peasants, according to the testimony of the local priest Peter Stepanov, "did not repair any resistance to preventing the plunder before that." The cornet of the rebels said to the peasants: "Mme, de men, do not work for the landowner at all and do not pay him any taxes."

Peasant attorneys selected at the gathering Leonty Travkin, Efrem Kolesnikov (Karpov) and Grigory Feklistov went to the camp to Pugachev and brought a special decree given from him, which was promulgated at the church in the village of Lyakhovo. The Karamzin priest Moiseyev read out this decree three times, in which the peasants were urged to "serve me, the great sovereign, to the drop of their blood," for which they would be rewarded with "a cross and a beard, river and land, grasses and seas, and a monetary salary, and grain provisions. , and lead, and gunpowder, and any liberty. " Leonty Travkin said that Pugachev ordered: "If someone kills the landowner to death and ruins his house, he will be given a salary - a hundred money, and whoever ruins ten noble houses, he will receive a thousand rubles and the rank of general." The peasants received a combat mission from Pugachev to create local armed detachments and prevent government troops moving from Kazan to their region.

In November 1773, the Cossack and other population of the fortresses along the Samara line joined the uprising. The Buzuluk fortress became the center. Its inhabitants, having listened to the Pugachev decree, brought from Berda on November 30 by a detachment of retired soldier Ivan Zhilkin, happily went over to the side of "Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich." On the same day, another rebel team of 50 Cossacks arrived in Buzuluk under the command of Ilya Fedorovich Arapov, a serf from near Buzuluk, who became a prominent figure in the peasant war. On the basis of Pugachev's manifestos and decrees, he liberated peasants from serfdom everywhere, dealt with landowners and their servants, and plundered noble estates. Taking the carts from local residents, "the rebels loaded them with 62 quarters of crackers, 164 kul of flour, 12 quarters of cereals, five poods of gunpowder and 2010 rubles of copper money." Sergeant Ivan Zverev, a participant in the events, showed this during the investigation.

The detachment of I. Arapov grew rapidly due to the influx of local peasants and Cossacks. On December 22, 1773, Arapov moved to Samara, and on December 25, he triumphantly entered it, peacefully greeted by "a great multitude of inhabitants" who came out with a cross, images, at the bell ringing. The residents of the Buguruslan settlement also joined the uprising, forming a detachment led by Gavrila Davydov, a former deputy of the Legislative Commission.

The noble government took measures to suppress the peasant uprising On October 14, 1773, Major General Kar was appointed head of the troops to suppress the uprising. On October 30, he arrived at the Kichuisky field officer, a former fortification on the New Zakamskaya line, on the Orenburg-Kazan highway. Even before the arrival of the Karakazan governor von Brandt sent a detachment of the Simbirsk commandant, Colonel Chernyshev, along the Samara line. From Siberia, military teams were moved from Tobolsk and from the Siberian line of fortifications. The coordinated actions of these detachments could decide the fate of the uprising. However, the rebels defeated these government troops.

Upon learning of the approach of Kara, the detachments of the rebels, under the leadership of Pugachev and Khlopushi, came out to meet and near the village of Yuzeeva (Belozersky district) inflicted a huge defeat on him. Kar retreated with significant losses.

On the morning of November 13, under Mount Mayak near Orenburg, a detachment of Colonel Chernyshev was captured, numbering up to 1100 Cossack man, 600-700 soldiers, 500 Kalmyks, 15 guns and a huge baggage train. Only a detachment of Colonel Korf, marching from the Verkhne-Ozernaya fortress (the modern village of Verkhneozernoe), consisting of 2500 people and 25 guns, managed to slip into Orenburg.

To prevent the offensive of government troops from Siberia, Pugachev in November sent Khlopusha up the Yaiku River and followed him himself. On November 23 and 26, peasant troops unsuccessfully attacked the Upper Ozernaya fortress. On November 29, they stormed the Ilyinsky fortress and captured the detachment of Major Zaev, who was marching to the aid of the besieged Orenburg. Major General Stanislavsky, moving after Zaev, retreated in fear to the Orsk fortress, where he remained with his detachment until the defeat of the uprising forces. On February 16, 1774, Khlopushi's detachment captures the Iletsk Defense ( modern city Sol-Iletsk).

The defeat of the government troops had a tremendous impact on the expansion of the uprising.

Already in October, Bashkir rebel detachments appear near Ufa, and from mid-November the siege of Ufa begins. The insurgent center was located 20 kilometers from Ufa, in the village of Chesnokovka. The leaders of the rebel forces in Bashkiria were the Bashkir national hero, 20-year-old Salavat Yulaev, the Yaik Cossack Chika-Zarubin, specially sent by Pugachev from Berd, and the retired soldier Beloborodov.

On November 18, its commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Wolf, escaped from the Buzuluk fortress. A detachment of peasants and Cossacks under the command of the rebel chieftain Arapov, a simple serf peasant, moved down Samara. On December 25, 1773, he was solemnly greeted by the inhabitants of Samara. In December, the residents of the Buguruslan settlement also joined the uprising, sending two deputies to Berdy to Pugachev. One of them - Gavrila Davydov - was received by Pugachev and appointed ataman of the Buguruslan settlement. Teams were organized everywhere, chieftains and chieftains were elected.

By the end of December, the entire western part of the modern Orenburg region and the adjacent part Samara region up to the Volga passed into the hands of the rebels. The cities went over to their side: Osa, Sarapul, Zainek. The retired artilleryman Ivan Beloborodov became the leader of the rebel detachments in the Middle Urals. Separate detachments of insurgents appeared near Yekaterinburg.

At the end of December 1773, the Yaik Cossack insurgents seized the Yaitsk Cossack town (Uralsk). The commandant of the town, Colonel Simonov, who had built a fortification inside the town, was under siege.

In January 1774, the rebels, led by the 20-year-old Bashkir national hero Salavat Yulaev, occupied the city of Krasnoufimsk and besieged Kungur, and the Chelyabinsk Cossacks, led by Ataman Gryaznov, captured the Chelyabinsk fortress. The population of the Ural mining plants goes over to the side of the uprising.

Thus, at the end of 1773 and at the beginning of 1774, the vast land was ablaze in the flames of rebellion. The landowners fled in fear to central Russia. Kazan is empty. Whole carts were drawn to Moscow with the property and families of landowners. A member of the secret commission of inquiry, Lieutenant-Captain Mavrin, on assignment to Kazan, wrote to Catherine II that despair and fear were so great that if Pugachev had sent about 30 of his supporters, he could easily have taken over the city.

Berdy village

At the beginning of November, the cold set in. On November 5, the peasant army moves into the Berdskaya Sloboda. The rebels settled in huts, dug-outs in the courtyards, in the vicinity of the settlement.

Berdskaya Sloboda becomes the center of the uprising, the main headquarters of the rebel army.

The significance of the settlement as the center of the uprising was well understood by the participants in the uprising. In their letters and official papers, they call it “the city of Berdy”. Contemporaries say: "They call the Berdskaya settlement Moscow, Kargala - Petersburg, and the Chernorechenskaya fortress - the province".

Peasants walked from all sides to the Berdskaya Sloboda: some - to see their peasant tsar, who was easily called "priest", and to receive a decree on "eternal liberty", others - to join the ranks of the peasant army. Chika-Zarubin, one of the main leaders of the uprising, later testified during interrogation: "A rare slave was taken into his crowd, for the most part they walked around every day in crowds."

This is how a multinational peasant army was formed.

The number of the peasant army in the middle of November 1773 reached 10,000 people, of which about half were Bashkirs. Later, in February-March 1774, the size of the peasant army grew to 20,000 people.

The entire army was divided into regiments, partly according to nationality, partly according to territorial and social characteristics. So, there was a regiment of Yaik Cossacks, a regiment of Iletsk Cossacks, a regiment of Orenburg Cossacks, a regiment of Kargaly Tatars, a regiment of factory peasants, etc.

Cavalry regiments were organized from the Cossacks and Bashkirs, who had horses, and the factory workers and peasants made up the infantry.

Each regiment stood in its own dugouts and had its own regimental banner. The regiments were divided into companies, hundreds and tens. The regimental commanders were chosen at the military circle or appointed by Pugachev. As a rule, all the commanders were chosen in a circle.

The leadership of Pugachev's army reached two hundred people, of whom 52 were Cossacks, 38 were serfs, 35 were factory workers. Among the leaders were 30 Bashkirs and 20 Tatars.

In addition to infantry and cavalry, there was artillery, numbering about 80 guns, many of which were made at the Ural factories. Shells were also made there.

In the regional museum of local lore, the insurgents' cannon is kept, which is a copper barrel attached to an iron-bound wooden machine - a gun carriage. Carriage wheels made of solid pieces of wood. On the barrel of the cannon, there is an image of the banner and the outline of the letter "P" - the initial letter of the name Peter. The cannon was probably cast in honor of the leader of the uprising in the Ural factories. It was sent to the museum from the St. Petersburg Artillery Museum in 1899, and there it was delivered from the Izhevsk Arms Factory

The armament of the army as a whole was weak.

The best armed were the Yaik and Orenburg Cossacks, who had their own weapons, as well as soldiers who went over with weapons to the side of the rebels. The rest were armed with “some with a spear, some with a pistol, some with an officer's sword; There were comparatively few guns: the Bashkirs were armed with arrows, and most of the infantry had bayonets stuck on sticks, some were armed with clubs, and the rest had no weapons at all and went to Orenburg with one whip, ”says one of the historians of the uprising.

Troops carried out patrol service, patrols and patrols were sent out. One of these patrols stood on Mount Mayak, from where the whole of Orenburg was clearly visible.

The troops were trained in combat. AS Pushkin writes: "exercises (especially artillery exercises) took place almost every day."

For commanding the army and managing the occupied territory, E. Pugachev created a special apparatus - the Military Collegium.

Pugachev appointed the Yaik Cossacks Andrei Vitoshnov, Maxim Shigaev, Danil Skobochkin and the Iletsk Cossack Ivan Tvorogov as members of the Military Collegium. The secretary of the board was the Iletsk Cossack Maxim Gorshkov, and the Duma clerk (chief secretary) was the Yaik Cossack Ivan Pochitalin.

The military collegium dealt with various military, administrative, economic, and judicial issues. She sent orders to the atamans, gave decrees on behalf of Peter III) took care of food, military supplies, dealt with complaints from the population, worked out plans for military operations, etc.

The leader of the uprising, E. Pugachev, was housed in a peasant hut in the Berd settlement in a peasant hut that belonged to the Berdin Cossack Sitnikov, which in the 20s of the 19th century was known among the Berdin Cossacks under the name of the "Golden Chamber". Prominent participant in the uprising Timofey Myasnikov said during interrogation “This house was one of the best and was called the sovereign's palace, on whose porch there was always an indispensable guard of the best 25 Yaik Cossacks, called the Guards. His peace was covered with hype instead of wallpaper ”, that is, with golden paper Old residents of the village of Berdy still remember the location of the“ golden chamber ”.

The closest associates of E. Pugachev in the first period of the uprising were the Yaik Cossacks Andrei Ovchinnikov, Chika-Zarubin, Maxim Shigaev, Perfilyev, Davilin, the centurion of the Orenburg Cossacks Timofei Padurov, the exiled Afanasy Sokolov-Khlopusha, the retired soldier Beloborodoye, the serf, the soldier Ilya Zhilkin Bashkirs Salavat Yulaev, Kinzya Arslanov, Kargaly Tatars Musa Aliev, Sadyk Seitov and others.

Pushkin in the village. Byrd

In the fall of 1833, Alexander Pushkin traveled to the distant Orenburg region to collect materials on the uprising of Yemelyan Pugachev and to get acquainted with the places of events of 1773-1775. On September 18 (old style) 1833 A.S. Pushkin arrived in Orenburg. On September 19, accompanied by V.I.Dal, he traveled to Berdy. In Berdy, A.S. Pushkin and V.I.Dal 'found a contemporary of the uprising, the old woman Buntova, who was from the Nizhneozernaya fortress. Buntova sang several songs about Pugachev to A.S. Pushkin, said that she remembered the uprising. The traces of this conversation are several notes in the notebook of the great poet with notes: "In Berd from an old woman", "An old woman in Berd". Buntova and other Berdin old-timers showed the place where the "sovereign's palace" stood, that is, the hut where Pugachev lived. From the high cliff of the old bank of the Sakmara, they showed the peaks of the Grebeni mountains and told, as V.I.

The trip to Berdy made a deep impression on Pushkin. Returning from a trip to his estate near Moscow Boldino, A.S. Pushkin, recalling a trip to Orenburg and. Uralsk, in a letter dated October 2, 1833 to his wife, wrote: “In the village of Berde, where Pugachev stayed for six months, I had une bonne fortune (great luck): I found a 75-year-old Cossack woman who remembers this time as you and I we remember 1830 ”.

Records made in s. Berds, were used by A. S. Pushkin in the "History of Pugachev" and the story "The Captain's Daughter". "Rebellious Sloboda" is the village of Berdy from the era of the uprising. Descriptions of the "sovereign's palace" and the road along which the hero of the story, Ensign Grinev, went to the "rebellious settlement", are based on the stories of Berdin old-timers, in particular Buntova, and the personal impressions of Alexander Pushkin.

The peasants lead Grinev "to the hut, which stood at the corner of the crossroads." Indeed, the hut of the Cossack Sitnikov, where Pugachev lived, as already mentioned, stood at the corner of modern Leninskaya and Pugachev streets, on the very edge of the Sakmara bank. The Cossack Akulina Timofeevna Blinova also points to the same location of the sovereign's palace in her memoirs recorded in 1899. A. T. Blinova, being Buntova's neighbor, was present at the conversation between A. S. Pushkin and V. I. Dal and Buntova. She recalled: “The gentlemen were asked to show the house 'where Pugachev lived. Buntova took them to the show. This house stood on a large street, on the corner, on the red side. It was six windows. The yard offers a wonderful view of Sakmara, lake and forest. Sakmara came very close to the courtyards. "

It is very likely that A.S. Pushkin was shown not only the place where the hut of the Cossack Sitnikov stood, but that during A.S. Pushkin's visit to the village. Berdy, this hut was still standing, and A. Pushkin saw the "sovereign's palace". This is indicated, in addition to the memoirs of AT Blinova, and the message of the publisher of "Notes of the Fatherland" PI Svinin, who was in Orenburg in 1824. In one of the notes to his article "Painting of Orenburg and its environs" P. I. Svinin reports that in the village. Berds show hitherto a hut, the former palace of E. Pugachev. This hut, Buntova's stories and documentary materials ...

Suppression of the uprising

The government understood the danger of the Pugachev uprising. On November 28, the State Council was convened, and General-in-Chief Bibikov was appointed commander of the troops to fight Pugachev, instead of Kara, who was provided with extensive powers.

Strong military units were thrown into the Orenburg Territory: the corps of Major General Golitsyn, the detachment of General Mansurov, the detachment of General Larionov and the Siberian detachment of General Decalong.

Until that time, the government tried to hide from the people the events near Orenburg and in Bashkiria. Only on December 23, 1773 was the Pugachev manifesto promulgated. The news of the peasant uprising spread throughout Russia.

On December 29, 1773, after the stubborn resistance of the detachment of the ataman Ilya Arapov, Samara was occupied. Arapov retreated to the Buzuluk fortress.

On February 28, a detachment of Prince Golitsin moved from Buguruslan to the Samara line to join with Major General Mansurov.

The whole winter passed in the siege of Orenburg, and only in March, having learned about the approach of Golitsyn's corps, Pugachev withdrew from Orenburg to meet the advancing troops.

On March 6, the advance detachment of Golitsin entered the village of Pronkino (on the territory of the present-day Sorochinsky district) and settled down for the night. Warned by the peasants, Pugachev with the atamans Rechkin and Arapov at night, during a strong storm and snowstorm, made a forced march and attacked the detachment. The rebels broke into the village, captured the cannons, but then were forced to retreat. Golitsyn, having withstood the attack of Pugachev. Under pressure from government troops, peasant detachments retreated up Samara, taking with them the population and supplies.

Pugachev returned to Berdy, transferring command of the retreating detachments to Ataman Ovchinnikov.

The decisive battle between the government troops and the peasant army took place on March 22, 1774 near the Tatishchevo fortress (the modern village of Tatishchevo). Pugachev concentrated here the main forces of the peasant army, about 9000 people. Instead of the burnt-out wooden walls, a rampart of snow and ice was erected, and cannons were installed. The battle lasted over 6 hours. The peasant troops held out with such steadfastness that Prince Golitsin, in his report to A. Bibikov, wrote:

"The matter was so important that I did not expect such insolence and orders in such unenlightened people in the military craft as these defeated rebels are."

The peasant army lost about 2,500 people killed (in one fortress 1,315 people were found killed) and about 3,300 people taken prisoner. Prominent peasant army commanders Ilya Arapov, soldier Zhilkin, Cossack Rechkin and others perished near Tatishcheva. All the insurgent artillery and the baggage train fell into the hands of the enemy. This was the first major defeat of the rebels.

The defeat of the rebels at Tatishcheva opened the road to Orenburg for the government troops. On March 23, Pugachev with a two-thousand-strong detachment went to the Perevolotskaya fortress in the steppe in order to break through the Samara line to Yaitsky town. Having stumbled upon a strong detachment of government troops, he was forced to turn back.

On March 24, the peasant army was defeated near Ufa. Its leader, Chika-Zarubin, fled to Tabinsk, but was treacherously captured and extradited.

Pugachev, pursued by the tsarist troops, with the remnants of his detachments, hastily retreated to Berda, and from there to the Seitovaya Sloboda and Sakmarsky town. Here on April 1, 1774, in a fierce battle, the rebels were again defeated. The leader of the uprising E. Pugachev left with a small detachment through Tashla to Bashkiria.

In the battle near the Sakmara town, prominent leaders of the uprising were captured: Ivan Pochitalin, Andrei Vitoshnov, Maxim Gorshkov, Timofey Podurov, M. Shigaev and others.

On April 16, government troops entered the Yaitsk Cossack town. A detachment of Yaik and Iletsk Cossacks in the amount of 300 people under the command of atamans Ovchinnikov and Perfiliev broke through the Samara line and went to Bashkiria to join Pugachev.

The attempt of the Orenburg and Stavropol Kalmyks to break through to Bashkiria ended less happily - only a small part of them could go there. The rest went to the Zasamar steppes. On May 23, they were defeated by government forces. The leader of the Kalmyks Derbetov died of wounds.

The events of the beginning of April 1774 basically ended the Orenburg period of the peasant war under the leadership of E. Pugachev.

On May 20, 1774, the Pugachevites occupied the Trinity Fortress, and on May 21, the Decalong detachment, who was in a hurry to catch up with the Pugachev detachment, approached it. Pugachev had an army of more than 11,000 people, but it was not trained, poorly armed, and therefore was defeated in the battle at the Trinity Fortress. Pugachev retreated towards Chelyabinsk. Here, at the Varlamova fortress, he was met by a detachment of Colonel Michelson and suffered a new defeat. From here, Pugachev's troops retreated to the Ural Mountains.

In May 1774, Afanasy Khlopusha, the commander of the "working people" regiment of the Ural factories, was executed in Orenburg. According to a contemporary, “his head was chopped off, and right there, close to the scaffold, his head was stuck on a spire on a gallows in the middle, which was removed this year in May and in the last days”.

Having replenished the army, Pugachev moved to Kazan and attacked it on July 11. The city was taken, with the exception of the fortress. During the storming of Kazan by the peasant troops in the prison, the Buguruslan rebel ataman Gavrila Davydov was stabbed to death by a guard officer, who was brought there after his capture. But on June 12, troops approached Kazan under the command of Colonel Mikhelson. In a battle that lasted more than two days, Pugachev was again defeated and lost about 7,000 people.

Although Pugachev's army was beaten, the uprising was not suppressed. When Pugachev, after his defeat in Kazan, crossed to the right bank of the Volga and sent out his manifestos to the peasants, urging them to fight against the nobles and officials, the peasants began to revolt without waiting for his arrival. This provided him with a movement forward. The army replenished and grew.

The workers and peasants of Central Russia were waiting for the arrival of Pugachev, but he did not go to Moscow, but headed south, along the right bank of the Volga. This march was victorious, Pugachev moved, almost without encountering resistance, and occupied settlements, cities one after another. Everywhere he was greeted with bread and salt, with banners and icons.

On August 1, Pugachev's detachments approached Penza and took it almost without resistance. On August 4, Petrovok was taken, followed by Saratov in the coming days. Entering the city, Pugachev everywhere released prisoners from prison, opened bread and salt shops and distributed goods to the people.

On August 17, Dubovka was taken, and on August 21, the Pugachevites approached Tsaritsyn and went on an assault. Tsaritsyn turned out to be the first city after Orenburg that Pugachev could not take. Upon learning that Michelson's detachment was approaching Tsaritsyn, he lifted the siege of the city, and went south, thinking to make his way to the Don and raise the entire population in an uprising.

A detachment of Colonel Mikhelson was operating near Ufa. He defeated Chika's detachment and headed for the factories. Pugachev occupied the Magnitnaya fortress and moved to Kizilskaya. But upon learning of the approach of the Siberian detachment under the command of the Decalong, Pugachev went into the mountains along the Verkhne-Uiskaya line, burning all the fortresses on his way.

On the night of 24 to 25 August, near the Black Yar, the rebels were overtaken by Mikhelsov's detachment. The big last battle took place. In this battle, Pugachev's army was finally defeated, having lost more than 10,000 people killed and taken prisoner. Pugachev himself and several of his confidants managed to get to the left bank of the Volga. They intended to raise the peoples who roamed the Caspian steppes against the government, and arrived in a village located near the Bolshie Uzeni River.

The government sent out manifestos everywhere, in which it promised 10,000 awards and forgiveness to the one who extradited Pugachev. Cossacks from the kulak elite, seeing that the uprising had turned into a campaign of the poor against the exploiters and oppressors, became more and more disillusioned with it. After the defeat of Pugachev, they conspired to save their corrupt skin. Pugachev's close associates - Chumakov, Tvorogov, Fedulov, Burnov, Zheleznov and others - attacked Pugachev en masse like cowardly dogs, tied him up and handed him over to the authorities. Pugachev was taken to the commandant of the Yaitsk town, Simonov, and from there to Simbirsk.

On November 4, 1774, in an iron cage, like a wild animal, Pugachev, accompanied by his wife Sophia and son Trofim, was taken to Moscow, where the investigation began. The commission of inquiry tried to present the case in such a way that the uprising was prepared on the initiative of hostile states, but the course of the case inexorably showed that it was caused by the unbearable oppression and exploitation to which the peoples of the region were subjected.

“The maxim on the punishment by death of the traitor, rebel and impostor Pugachev and his accomplices.

With the addition of the announcement to the forgiven criminals.

For this reason, the Assembly, finding a case in such circumstances, conforming to the unparalleled mercy of Her Imperial Majesty, knowing Her compassionate and humanitarian heart, and finally, arguing that law and duty require justice, and not revenge, nowhere according to the Christian law that is incompatible, they unanimously sentenced and determined , for all the atrocities committed, the rebel and impostor Emelka Pugachev, by virtue of the prescribed Divine and civil laws, to inflict the death penalty, namely: to quarrel, beat the head on a stake, spread the body parts to four parts of the city and put on wheels, and then on those same places to burn. His main accomplices, contributing to his atrocities: 1. Yaitsky Cossack Afanasy Perfiliev, as the main favorite and collaborator in all evil intentions, undertakings and deeds of the monster and impostor Pugachev, more than all the anger and betrayal of his worthy fierce execution, and whose deeds for everyone hearts may lead that this villain, being in Petersburg at the very time when the monster and impostor showed up in front of Orenburg, voluntarily presented himself to the authorities with such a proposal, supposedly, being prompted by loyalty to the general benefit and tranquility, he wanted to persuade the main villainous accomplices, Yaik Cossacks to subjugate the legitimate authorities, and bring the villain together with them with guilt. According to this exact certificate and oath, he was sent to Orenburg; but the burnt conscience of this villain, under the cover of good intentions, craved malice: he arrived in the host of villains, introduced himself to the main rebel and impostor, who was then in Berd, and not only refrained from performing the service that he promised to perform and conjured, but, what-b to assure the impostor of loyalty, openly declared to him his entire intention, and uniting his treacherous conscience with the vile soul of the monster himself, remained from that time to the very end unshakable in zeal for the enemy of the fatherland, was the main accomplice of his atrocious deeds, carried out all the most painful executions on those unfortunate people, whom the disastrous lot condemned to fall into the bloodthirsty hands of villains, and finally, when the villainous gathering was destroyed in the last under the Black Yar, and the most favorites of the monster Pugachev rushed to the Yaitsk steppe, and in search of salvation, broke into different gangs, then the Cossack Pustobaev exhorted his comrades their own to appear in the Yaitsky city with a confession, to which the others agreed; but this hated traitor said that he would rather be buried alive in a zeya than surrender to the hands of Her Imperial Majesty to certain authorities; however, he was caught by the expelled command; for what he himself is the traitor Perfiliev, dressed and blamed before the court; - quartered in Moscow.

To the Yaitsk Cossack Ivan Chika, who is also Zarubin, who called himself Count Chernyshev, the inherent favorite of the villain Pugachev, and who at the very beginning of the villain's rebellion, more than anyone else in imposture, set a seductive example to many others and, with extreme zeal, hid him from being caught when he was exiled for an impostor there was a detective team from the city, and then, when the villain and impostor Pugachev was discovered, he was one of his main collaborators, commanded a separated crowd, besieging the city of Ufa. For violation of the oath of allegiance to Her Imperial Majesty given before the almighty God for sticking to a rebel and impostor, for performing his vile deeds, for all ruin, kidnapping and murder - to cut off his head, and whip it on a stake for a nationwide spectacle, and burn his corpse with scaffold purchased. And this execution should be performed in Ufa, as in the main one of those places where all his godless deeds were carried out.

The Yaitsk Cossack Maxim Shigaev, the Orenburg Cossack Sotnik Podurov and the Orenburg non-serving Cossack Vasily Tornov, of whom the first Shigaev, because he heard about the impostor, voluntarily went to see him, or the inn to Stepan Abalyaev, located not far from the Yaitsky city, conferred in favor of discovering the villain and impostor Pugachev, he made public about him in the city, and if his meaning was attracted by the likelihood of ordinary people, then he created affection for the rebel and impostor in many; But sweat, when the villain had already clearly stolen the name of the late Tsar Peter the Third, and proceeded to the town of Yaitsk, he was with him one of his first collaborators. When taxing Orenburg, at any time when the main villain himself left there for the Yaitsky city, he left him as the head of his rebellious crowd. And in this hateful leadership he produced many anger Shigaev: he hanged the Leib-Guard of the Horse Regiment of the Reiter, sent to Orenburg from the Major-General and the Knight of Prince Golitsyn, with the news of his approach, only because of the true loyalty to Her Imperial Majesty, his legitimate Imperial Majesty, saved by the said Reiter ... Second Podurov, as if a real traitor, who not only surrendered himself to the villain and impostor, but also wrote many depraved letters among the people, exhorting the Yaik Cossacks faithful to Her Imperial Majesty to surrender to the villain and rebel, calling him and assuring others that he was the true Emperor , and finally wrote threatening letters to the Orenburg Governor, Lieutenant-General and Cavalier Reinsdorp, to the Orenburg Ataman Mogutov and to the loyal Sergeant-Major of the Yaitsk army, Martemyai Borodin, with which this traitor was convinced and confessed by letters. The third Tornov, as if a real villain and destroyer of human souls, ruined the Nagaybatsky fortress and some residence, and, moreover, again adhered to the impostor, to hang all three of them in Moscow.

Yaitszhikh Cossacks, Vasily Plotnikov, Denis Karavaev, Grigory Zakladnov, Meshcheryatsky Sotnik Kaznafer Usaev, and the Rzhevsk merchant Dolgopolov for the fact that these villainous accomplices, Plotnikov and Karavaev, at the very beginning of the villainous intent, came to the plowed soldier then to the plowed and agreeing with him about the indignation of the Yaitsk Cossacks, they made the first disclosures to the people, and Karavaev said that he would have seen the Tsar's signs on the villain ... Thus, leading ordinary people into the temptation, this Karavaev and Plotikov, according to the rumor about the impostor, were taken on guard , it was not announced. Zakladnov was like the first of the initial disclosures about the villain, and the very first before whom the villain dared to call himself the Emperor. Kaznafer Usaev was twice in the villainous crowd, he traveled to different places to indignate the Bashkirians and was with the villains Beloborodov and Chika, who produced various tyrannies. For the first time he was captured by loyal troops under the leadership of Colonel Mikhelson during the defeat of a villainous gang near the city of Ufa, and released with a ticket for the former residence; but not feeling the mercy shown to him, he again turned to the impostor, and brought the merchant Dolgopolov to him. The Rzhev merchant Dolgopolov, with various falsely composed fictions, led simple and frivolous people into a blind blinding, so that Kaznafer Usaev, having established himself more on his assurances, adhered a second time to the villain. To whip all five of them with a whip, put up signs and rip out their nostrils, send to hard labor, and of them Dolgopolov, in addition, to keep in chains.

Yaitsky Cossack Ivan Pochitalin, Iletsky Maxim Gorshkov and Yaitsky Ilya Ulyanov, for the fact that Pochitalin and Gorshkov were producers of writing under the impostor, drew up and signed his nasty sheets, calling them the Tsar's manifestos and decrees, through which they multiplied corruption in ordinary people. their non-participation and destruction. Ulyanov, as if he was always with them in villainous gangs, and who, as they did, murder, whip all three of them with a whip and, tearing out their nostrils, send them to hard labor.

Yaitsk Cossacks: Timofey Myasnikov, Mikhail Kozhevnikov, Pyotr Kochurov, Pyotr Tolkachev, Ivan Kharchev, Timofei Skachkov, Pyotr Gorshenin, Ponkrat Yagunov, arable soldier Stepan Abalyaev and the exiled peasant Afanasy Chuikov villainous gangs, whip, and ripped out nostrils, send to the settlement.

The retired Guards furrier Mikhail Golev, the Saratov merchant Fyodor Kobyakov and the schismatic Pakhomiy, the first for sticking to the villain and the temptations from their disclosure, and the latter for false testimony to whip, Golev and Pakhomiy in Moscow, and Protobyakov in Saratov, the merchant and Saraoptovsky ZH for failure to preserve due fidelity, if necessary, to whip.

Iletskago Kavak Ivan Tvarogov, yes Yaitskikh, Fyodor Chumakov, Vasily Konovalov, Ivan Burnov, Ivan Fedulov, Peter Pustobaev, Kozma Kochurov, Yakov Pochitalin and Semyon Sheludyakov, by virtue of Her Imperial Majesty the Gracious Imperial Majesty; release from any punishment; the first five people because, having heeded the voice of remorse, and feeling the severity of their iniquities, not only came to guilt, but I tied up the culprit of their destruction, Pugachev, betrayed myself and the villain and impostor of lawful power and justice; Pusotobaev, for the fact that he persuaded the detached gang from Pugachev himself to come with obedience, evenly and Kochurov, who even before that time had appeared with his guilt; and the last two for the signs of loyalty they showed, when they were captured in a villainous crowd and were sent from the villains to the Yaitsky city, but when they came there, although they were afraid to lag behind the crowd, they always announced evil circumstances and the approach of loyal troops to the fortress ; and then when the villainous crowd was destroyed near the Yaitsky town, they themselves came to the commander. And about this Highest Mercy of Her Imperial Majesty and pardon to make them a special announcement, through the member detached from the meeting, this Genvar 11 days, at a nationwide spectacle in front of the Palace of Facets, where to remove the shackles from them.

The death penalty determined by the villains in Moscow is to be carried out in a swamp, this Genvar is 10 days. Why bring the villain Chiku, appointed for execution in the city of Ufa, and after the local execution of the same hour send him to execution in the place appointed to him. And for both the publication of this maxim, and the predicted mercy for the forgiven, and about the proper preparations and outfits, send decrees from the Senate, where appropriate. It was concluded on the 9th day of January 1775 ”.

(Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire. Year 1775.
January 10th. Law No. 14233, pp. 1-7)

The fists who betrayed Pugachev were pardoned. The verdict by Catherine II was approved. Condemned do not sit for mercy.

On January 10, 1775, in Moscow, the tsarist executioners executed the people's leader and his associates. Pugachev and Perfiliev were to be quartered alive, but the executioner "made a mistake" and cut off their heads first, and then quartered them.

Ivan Zarubin-Chika was executed in Ufa. Salavat Yulaev and his father Yulai Aznalin were severely beaten with a whip in many villages of Bashkiria and sent to hard labor in Rogervik on the Baltic Sea. Mass repressions in the Urals and the Volga region continued until the summer of 1775. Ordinary participants in the uprising were sent to hard labor, assigned to the army, beaten with whips, batogs, and whips.

A cruel reprisal took place with ordinary participants in the uprising. A lot of prisoners were thrown into prison. In Orenburg at the beginning of April 1774, up to 4,000 people were kept. Prison, Gostiny Dvor - everything was overcrowded. The prisoners were even kept in "drinking houses". For the investigation, members of the secret commission of inquiry, captains Mavrin and Lunin, were sent to Orenburg. Especially brutal massacre was carried out on the right bank of the Volga. The entire leadership of the uprising - atamans, colonels, centurions - were executed by death, ordinary participants in the uprising were flogged and "cut off a few at one ear" and out of 300 people, by lot, "one was executed by death."

In order to intimidate the population, executions were carried out in public in public places, rafts with the hanged descended along the Volga. In all those places where active performances took place, "gallows", "verbs" and "wheels" were erected. They were also built within the modern Orenburg region in most of the settlements of that time.

Orenburg governor Reinsdorf, Colonel Mikhelson and other commanders for suppressing the popular uprising were rewarded with new ranks, villages with serfs and lands, as well as large sums of money.

Results of the uprising

The peasant war led by Yemelyan Pugachev ended in defeat for the rebels. However, this does not detract from the enormous progressive significance of the uprising. The peasant war of 1773-1775 dealt a serious blow to the feudal-serf system, it undermined its foundations.

In order to prevent a repetition of "Pugachevism", tsarism began hastily to take measures to strengthen the positions of the nobility both in the center and in the outskirts.

In the Orenburg region, the distribution of state land in the form of "all-merciful awards" to officers, officials, and Cossack foremen who participated in the suppression of the peasant war has increased. In 1798, general land surveying began in the province. It secured to the landlords all of their lands, including those illegally seized. The government encouraged the noble-landlord colonization of the region, therefore in the last quarter of the 18th century. increased resettlement of landowners and their peasants, especially in the Buguruslan and Buzuluk districts. Over the last quarter of the 18th century. in the Orenburg province, 150 new noble estates were formed.

Catherine II, wanting to erase from memory the hated names associated with the Pugachev movement, changed the names different places; so the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don, where Pugachev was born, was renamed Potemkin; Catherine II ordered to burn down the house where Pugachev was born. At the same time, a curiosity occurred. Since Pugachev's house had previously been sold and moved to another estate, he was ordered to be put in its original place and then, by virtue of the decree, burned. The Yaik River was named the Ural. The Yaitsky army of the Ural Cossack army, the Yaitsky town - the Uralsky, the Verkhne-Yaitskaya pier - the Verkhneuralsky, etc. The nominal decree of the Senate on this matter reads:

“... for the complete oblivion of this unfortunate incident on Yaik, the Yaik river, along which both this army and the city had their name until now, due to the fact that this river flows from the Ural Mountains, should be renamed Ural, and therefore and to name the army Uralsk, and henceforth not to be called Yaitsky, equally from now on the Yaitsky city should be called Uralsk; what is published for information and execution ".

(Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire.

It was strictly forbidden to even mention the name of Pugachev, and documents began to call his uprising "the well-known popular confusion."

In an effort to subordinate the Cossacks to their interests, to turn them from an instigator of popular movements into a punitive force, tsarism, relying on the ataman-elders' elite, makes some concessions to the Cossack administration, but at the same time gradually reforms it in an army manner. The Cossack upper classes are given the right to own serfs, courtyards, officers and nobility are given.

The tsarist government promoted the spread of serfdom among the non-Russian peoples of the region. By a decree of February 22, 1784, the endorsement of the local nobility was enshrined.

The Tatar and Bashkir princes and Murzas were allowed to use the "liberties and advantages" of the Russian nobility, including the right to own serfs, though only of the Muslim faith. The largest of the Muslim landowners, who owned thousands of serfs, were the Tevkelevs, the descendants and heirs of the famous translator and diplomat, later General A.I. Tevkelev.

However, fearing new popular uprisings, tsarism did not dare to completely enslave the non-Russian population of the region. The Bashkirs and Mishars were left in the position of the military service population. In 1798 cantonal administration was introduced in Bashkiria. In the formed 24 cantonal regions, administration was carried out in a military manner.

The peasant war showed the weakness of administrative control in the outskirts. Therefore, the government hastily began to reform it. In 1775, the provincial reform followed, according to which the disaggregation of the provinces was carried out and there were 50 instead of 20. All power in the provincial and uyezd institutions was in the hands of the local nobility.

To improve the supervision of the order in the region, a new reform was carried out in 1782. Instead of the province, two governorships were established: Simbirsk and Ufa, which, in turn, were divided into regions, the latter into counties, and counties into volosts. The Ufa governorship consisted of two regions - Orenburg and Ufa. The Orenburg region included the following counties: Orenburg, Buzuluksky, Verkhneuralsky, Sergievsky and Troitsky. A number of fortresses were turned into the cities of Buguruslan, Orsk, Troitsk, Chelyabinsk, with the corresponding staff of officials and military teams. Samara and Stavropol, which had previously been part of the Orenburg province, went to the Simbirsk governorship, the Ural Cossack army with the Ural and Guryev - the Astrakhan province.

The peasant war led by Pugachev is another milestone in the struggle of the Russian people from the age-old serf slavery. This topic is difficult to grasp, since it spans two years full of events that are difficult to remember. In this article, we will briefly describe these very events so that you can get an idea of ​​this topic. Where to solve tests on this topic, see we wrote at the end of this post.

Origins

The reasons for the peasant war, which took place in, lie in the nature of the economic system, which was in the 18th century in the Russian Empire. It was the feudal economic system that gave rise to a complex of contradictions, which led to numerous uprisings. However, the state did not want to change this system, because it had not yet exhausted its capabilities. It was on the shoulders of the serfs that Russia became the leading world power in this century. But the price of such power was high.

• First, the serfs' duties were constantly growing. And the possibilities of the peasant economy were limited. As a result, small riots arose everywhere - 2-7 thousand people each, which easily suppressed government troops.
• Secondly, the state began to attack the Cossack liberties. In connection with the beginning, the crown began to interfere in the internal self-government of the Cossacks and recruit them for this war.
• Third, the death of Emperor Peter III made him a martyr in the eyes of the common people. Therefore, starting in 1765, there were constant reports of impostors, who, however, were quickly found and exiled mainly to Nerchinsk to hard labor.

Therefore, the main driving force was not the serfs themselves, but the Cossacks and fugitives who fled to Yaik.

The reason for the uprising

The uprising was triggered by several events:

1771 year- government troops invaded the Cossack villages to recruit Cossacks for the war. This caused uprisings. In particular, just before Pugachev's speech, General Traubenberg (1772) was killed in Orenburg, who decided to punish the Cossacks for sending petitioners to Moscow, and for not recognizing the army foremen appointed by the crown.

1771 year- A Plague Riot broke out in Moscow. The infection came from the Turkish front, and quickly spread thanks to the fact that the clergy displayed the "miraculous" icon of the Mother of God. People began to kiss her and become infected with airborne droplets en masse. Vladyka Ambrose ordered to remove the icon. Because of this, the people rebelled. The revolt was suppressed by military units led by Grigory Orlov.

Course of events

Emelyan Pugachev, like Stepan Razin, came from the village of Zimoveyskaya. For several years the man fought on the fields of the Seven Years War. For heroism he received the title of cornet. Then he returned home and decided to flee to free lands. He also persuaded other Cossacks to flee from the war. For this he was arrested, but the dodger fled and hid.

Emelyan Pugachev, troublemaker

In the end, most of the Cossacks recognized him as the leader, and Emelyan, do not be a fool, took and betrayed himself to the miraculously saved Tsar Peter the Third. His fellow Cossacks knew this and recognized him as such. Among them were: D. Lysov, M. Shigaev, D. Karavaev, I. Zarubin-Chika, etc.

Initially, Pugachev sent a detachment to the Tolkachevs farm to replenish the detachment. On the way, the first manifesto of the new "tsar" was written. In it, the "king" reflected all the pain of the Cossacks of that time and the common people. It is not hard to guess that this is why the peasants took his side. This peasant war itself can generally be divided into three stages:

The first stage: from the fall of 1773 to the spring of 1774. The period began with the siege of Orenburg, which Pugachev approached on October 5, 1773. The siege lasted a long time, but the city was never taken. Even despite the fact that in November 1773 Yemelyan's troops defeated the government forces under the leadership of General Kara. You need to remember that the first period is associated with the defeat of General Kara. In addition to Orenburg, since December 1773, the troublemaker's associates laid siege to Samara and Ufa. The period ended with the defeat of Pugachev's troops in March 1774 near the Tatishchev Fortress, and the wax of Zarubin-Chiki near Ufa.

In the same period, the queen proclaimed herself a "Kazan noblewoman" in solidarity with the nobles of the Volga region. By the spring of 1774, the entire working Urals rebelled. The rebels were commanded by Ivan Beloborodov.

Rebellion Map

Second stage of the uprising: from March to July 1774. Despite the fact that Pugachev was defeated already by the second government commander, General-in-Chief Bibikov, the uprising expanded and continued. Instead of Bibikov, who died at the end of April, the government sent General Michelson to suppress the uprising. In May of this year, Pugachev again defeated the government army at the Trinity Fortress. It seemed that he was marching victoriously across the Urals.

His army increased due to the fact that all the scattered detachments, sent out in December 1773, now joined his army. Kazan has already approached 20 thousand rebels. On July 15, near Kazan, he suffered a crushing defeat from the regular army of Michelson.

Third stage: from July to September 1774. After the defeat, Pugachev moved further west - to Nizhny Novgorod. On the way, he distributed freedom, will and wealth to the common people. The news of the approach of the troublemaker created confusion in the heads of the peasants: new free communities and chieftains were immediately formed. However, in August, Pugachev suffered a series of defeats: on August 21 at Tsaritsyn and on 24 at Cherny Yar. Black Yar had its last battle. After him, the troublemaker fled with a small detachment, but on September 15 he was betrayed by the senior Cossacks.

Suvorov accompanied Pugachev to Moscow, summoned from the front to suppress the uprising. After the court found him guilty, on January 10, 1775, Pugachev was executed on Bolotnaya Square.

Meaning

As a result, the peasant war under the leadership of Pugachev lasted from 1773 to September 1774. But this period entered the history of Russia as from 1773 to 1775. The results of this war were such that many estates were ruined, and unrest was sown in the country.

The reasons for the defeat of the peasant war were that the army of the rebels was, although numerous, but practically unarmed against the regular units of the army. In addition, although the peasants supported the uprising, but often after the massacre of the nobleman (master), and the crossing of the land, they were not particularly eager to leave their places further. The peasants did not understand that following the massacre of the rebels, their land would be taken away again.

Meanwhile, the uprising led to the provincial reform of Catherine II, which gave great rights to the governors and downsized the provinces.

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Emelyan I. Pugachev

“Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev is a hero and an impostor, a sufferer and a rebel, a sinner and a saint ... But above all - the leader of the people, a personality, of course, an exceptional one - otherwise he would not have been able to drag armies of thousands with him and lead them into battle for two years. Raising the uprising, Pugachev knew that the people would follow him ”(GM Nesterov, ethnographer).

The artist T. Nazarenko expresses a similar idea in his painting. Her painting Pugachev, in which she did not strive for a truly historical reconstruction of events, depicts a scene reminiscent of an ancient folk oleography. On it are doll figures of soldiers in bright uniforms and a conventional cage with a rebellious leader in the pose of the crucified Christ. And ahead, 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 reign of Catherine II and the Pugachev rebellion, was painted 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 pictures, of course, are connected with the present day,” says Tatiana Nazarenko. - "Pugachev" is a story of betrayal. It is at every turn. Pugachev was abandoned by his associates, condemning him to execution. It always happens that way. "

T. Nazarenko "Pugachev". Diptych

Numerous legends, traditions, epics, and legends circulate about Pugachev and his associates. The people pass them on from generation to generation.

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

How it all began?

The reason for the start of the Peasant War, which covered vast territories and attracted several hundred thousand people to the ranks of the rebels, was the wonderful announcement of the escaped "Tsar Peter Fedorovich". You can read about him on our website:. But let us briefly recall: Peter III (Petr Fedorovich, born Karl Peter Ulrich 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. For a long time, the personality and activities of Peter III were regarded by historians as unanimously negative, but then they began to treat him more carefully, assessing a number of state services of the emperor. During the reign of Catherine II, many pretended to be Peter Fedorovich impostors(about forty cases were recorded), the most famous of which was Emelyan Pugachev.

L. Pfanzelt "Portrait of Emperor Peter III"

Who is he?

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

Took part in Seven Years War 1756-1763, with his regiment 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 a team of the captain Elisey Yakovlev to search for and return to Russia the fled Old Believers.

He took part in the Russian-Turkish war, where he fell ill and was dismissed, but became involved in the escape of his son-in-law from the service and was forced to flee to the Terek. After numerous twists and turns, adventures and escapes, in November 1772, he settled in the Old Believers' skete of the Introduction of the Mother of God in the Saratov region with the abbot Filaret, from whom he heard about the riots that had taken place in the Yaitsky army. After some time, in a conversation with one of the participants in the uprising of 1772, Denis Pyanov, for the first time, he called himself the escaped Peter III: “I’m not a merchant, but Tsar Peter Fyodorovich, I was also in Tsaritsyn, that God and good people kept me, and instead of me they spotted a guard soldier, and in St.... Upon his return to the Mechetnaya Sloboda, on the denunciation of the peasant Filippov Pugachev, who was with him on the trip, he was arrested and sent to conduct an investigation, first to Simbirsk, then in January 1773 to Kazan.

Portrait of Pugachev, painted from life with oil paints (inscription on the portrait: "The original image of the rebel and deceiver Emelka Pugachev")

Escaping again and again calling himself "Emperor Peter Fedorovich", he began to meet with the instigators of previous uprisings and discussed with them the possibility of a new uprising. 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 told them again the story of his "miraculous salvation" and discussed the possibility of an uprising.

At this time, the commandant of the government garrison in Yaitsky town, Lieutenant Colonel ID 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. Concealing 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 his literate companions 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 happen.

Yaik Cossacks were the main driving force behind the uprising. Throughout the entire 18th century, they gradually lost their privileges and liberties, but they still remember the times of complete independence from Moscow and Cossack democracy. In the 1730s, there was an almost complete split of the army into the starshinskaya 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 free mining of salt and the emergence of salt tax 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 write petitions to Orenburg and St. Petersburg, send delegates from the army with a complaint about the atamans and local authorities. Sometimes they achieved their goal, and especially unacceptable chieftains changed, but on the whole the situation remained the same. In 1771, the Yaik Cossacks refused to go in pursuit of the Kalmyks who had migrated outside Russia. General Traubenberg with a detachment of soldiers went to investigate the disobedience to the order. The result was the Yaitsk Cossack uprising of 1772, during which General Traubenberg and the army chieftain Tambovtsev were killed. Troops were sent to suppress the uprising. The rebels were defeated at the Embulatovka River in June 1772; As a result of the defeat, the Cossack circles were finally liquidated, a garrison of government troops was deployed in Yaitsky 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: never before had the Cossacks been branded, they had not cut out their tongues. A large number of participants in the performance took refuge in distant steppe farms, excitement reigned everywhere, the state of the Cossacks was like a compressed spring.

V. Perov "Pugachev's trial"

Tension was also present in the environment peoples of other religions in the Urals and the Volga region. The development of the Urals and the colonization of the Volga lands belonging to local nomadic peoples is intolerable religious politics led to numerous unrest among the Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Erzyans, Chuvashes, 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 attributing state peasants to state 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. It was very convenient to take advantage of the powerlessness and hopeless position 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, there was a decree of Catherine II of August 22, 1767 prohibiting the peasants from complaining about the landlords. That is, there was complete impunity for some and complete dependence on others. And it becomes easier to understand how the current circumstances helped Pugachev to captivate so many people. Fantastic rumors about imminent freedom or about the transfer of all the peasants to the treasury, about the ready-made decree of the tsar, who was killed for this by his wife and boyars, about the fact that the tsar was not killed, but he was hiding until better times fell on the fertile soil of general human discontent with his present position ... All groups of future participants in the performance simply had no other opportunity to defend their interests.

Insurrection

First step

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

The uprising began on Yaik. The starting point of Pugachev's movement was the Tolkachev farm located in the south of the Yaitsky town. It was from this farm that Pugachev, who by that time was already Peter III, Tsar Peter Fedorovich, addressed a manifesto, in which he bestowed upon all those who joined him “with a river from the tops to the mouth, and earth, and herbs, and monetary salary, and lead. , and gunpowder, and grain provisions ". At the head of his constantly growing 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 a hostile government, since all the royal decrees came from there. 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 more less significant centers arose as well. But the first stage of the war ended with two defeats of Pugachev - near the Tatishchev Fortress and Sakmarsky town, as well as the defeat of his closest associate - Zarubin-Chiki at Chesnokovka and the end of the siege of Orenburg and Ufa. Pugachev and his surviving associates leave for Bashkiria.

Peasant War Combat Map

Second phase

In the second stage, the Bashkirs massively participate in the uprising, who by that time already made up the majority in the Pugachev army. At the same time, government forces have become very active. This forced Pugachev to move towards Kazan, and then, in mid-July 1774, 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. Rumors about this spread throughout the neighborhood. Despite the major defeat of the Pugachev army, the uprising engulfed 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 this time with his troops continued fighting near Ufa, the Bashkir detachments in the Pugachev detachment were led by Kinzya Arslanov. Pugachev entered Kurmysh, then freely entered Alatyr, and then headed for Saransk. On the central square of Saransk, a decree on freedom for the peasants was read, the residents were given supplies of salt and bread, the city treasury "While driving through the city fortress and along the streets ... they threw rabble raids from different counties"... The same solemn meeting awaited Pugachev in Penza. The decrees provoked numerous peasant revolts in the Volga region, the movement covered most of the Volga districts, approached the borders of the Moscow province, and really threatened Moscow.

The publication of decrees (manifestos on the emancipation of the peasants) in Saransk and Penza is called the culmination of the Peasant 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 over a million people was involved in the uprising. They could not give anything to Pugachev's army in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments operated no further than their estate. But they turned Pugachev's campaign along the Volga region into a triumphal procession, with bells ringing, the blessing of the village father and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. When Pugachev's army 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.

This is how the second stage of the war ends.

Stage Three

In the second half of July 1774, when the Pugachev uprising was approaching the borders of the Moscow province and threatened 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 Danube principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command the troops that were to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

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

In the meantime, 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 bell ringing 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 members of which, 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 Karavinskaya. On August 21, 1774, Pugachev tried to attack Tsaritsyn, but the assault failed.

Michelson's corps pursued Pugachev, and he hastily lifted the siege from Tsaritsyn, moving to the Black Yar. Panic began in Astrakhan. On 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 were killed, among them Ataman Ovchinnikov. More than 6,000 people were taken prisoner. Pugachev and 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 Yaitskiy gorodok, Simbirsk, Orenburg.

Pugachev under escort. 18th century engraving

Pugachev with a detachment of Cossacks fled to the Uzens, 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 pursuit, they divided the detachment so as to separate the Cossacks loyal to Pugachev along with the ataman Perfiliev. On September 8, near the Bolshoy Uzen River, they attacked and tied Pugachev, after which Chumakov and Tvorogov went to Yaitsky town, where on September 11 they announced the capture of the impostor. Having received promises of pardon, they notified the accomplices, and on September 15 they brought Pugachev to Yaitsky town. The first interrogations took place, one of which was conducted personally by Suvorov, he also volunteered to escort Pugachev to Simbirsk, where the main investigation was underway. To transport Pugachev, a cramped cage was made, installed 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 secret commissions of inquiry, and Count P.I. Panin, commander of the government's punitive troops.

Continuation of the Peasant War

With the capture of Pugachev, the war did not end - it developed 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 landowners left their homes and hid from the rebels. To bring down the wave of riots, punitive squads began mass executions. In every village, in every town that received Pugachev, on the gallows, from which they barely managed to remove those who were 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 the intimidation, the gallows were installed on rafts and launched along the main rivers of the uprising. In May, the execution of Khlopushi took place 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 to "The Captain's Daughter" by A. Pushkin)

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 Gate of Kitai-Gorod. The interrogations were supervised by Prince M. N. Volkonsky and chief secretary S. I. Sheshkovsky.

Pugachev gave detailed testimony about himself and about his plans and designs, 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.

Sentence and execution

On December 31, Pugachev was transported under a reinforced escort from the casemates of the Mint to the chambers of the Kremlin Palace. He was then led into the conference room and forced to kneel down. After a formal questioning, he was taken out of the hall, the court ruled: "To quarter Emelka Pugachev, stick his head on a stake, spread the body parts to 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 the imposition of each appropriate type of execution or punishment.

On January 10, 1775, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, with a huge crowd of people, an execution was carried out. Pugachev was calm. On the frontal place he crossed himself at the Kremlin cathedrals, bowed on four sides with the words "Forgive me, Orthodox people." At the request of Catherine II, sentenced to quartering E.I.Pugachev and A.P. Perfiliev, the executioner first chopped off his head. 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 at the beginning of 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. In the role of the instigator of the war, the Cossacks act, 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 huge territory, which had no precedents in the previous history; 2) organization of the movement different from the rest, the creation of central command and control bodies, the publication of manifestos, a fairly clear structure of the army.

Consequences of the Peasant War

In order to eradicate the memory of Pugachev, Catherine II issued decrees to rename all places associated with these events. Stanitsa Zimoveyskaya on the Don, where Pugachev was born, was renamed v Potemkin, 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 governing Senate

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

The policy in relation to the Cossack troops was adjusted, the process of their transformation into army units is accelerating. By a decree of February 22, 1784, the endorsement of the local nobility was enshrined. 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 enormous damage to the metallurgy of the Urals. 64 of 129 factories existing in the Urals fully joined the uprising. In May 1779, a manifesto was issued on the general rules for the use of registered peasants in state and private enterprises, which limited breeders in the use of peasants assigned to factories, reduced working hours 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

In 1771, unrest swept the lands of the Yaik Cossacks. Unlike the local social uprisings that preceded them, this uprising of the Cossacks in the Urals was already a direct prologue to the largest social upheaval of the 18th century, and of all history. imperial Russia- the uprising led by E.I. Pugachev, which resulted in the Peasant War of 1773-1775.
Objectively, the reason for this powerful social explosion was the monstrous increase in serfdom, which was a hallmark of Catherine's "golden age" of the Russian nobility. The legislation of Catherine II on the peasant question expanded the willfulness and arbitrariness of the landowners to the extreme. Thus, the decree of 1765 on the right of the landowner to exile his serfs to hard labor two years later was supplemented by the prohibition of serfs to file complaints against their landowners.
At the same time, the government of Catherine II led a consistent attack on the traditional privileges of the Cossacks: a state monopoly was introduced on fishing and salt production on the Yaik, the autonomy of Cossack self-government was infringed, the appointment of military atamans and the involvement of Cossacks in service in the North Caucasus were introduced into practice, etc.
It should be noted that it was the Cossacks who were the instigators and the main actors the Pugachev uprising, as well as during the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 17th century, as well as the uprisings of S. Razin and K. Bulavin. But along with the Cossacks and peasants, other groups of the population took part in the uprising, each of which pursued its own goals. Thus, for representatives of the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region, participation in the uprising was in the nature of a national liberation struggle; the goals of the factory workers of the Urals who joined the Pugachevites, in fact, did not differ from the peasants; Poles exiled to the Urals fought for their liberation in the ranks of the rebels.
A special group of rebels consisted of Russian schismatics, who, during the persecutions against them at the end of the 17th and the first half of the 18th centuries. found refuge in the Volga region. They fought with government troops, but it was in the schismatic sketes that the idea of ​​accepting the name of Peter III by Pugachev ripened, and the schismatics supplied him with money.
All these groups were united by "common indignation", as General A.I.Bibikov, sent to suppress the Pugachevism, put it, but with such different goals and positions, it would be correct to assume that in the event of a victory of the insurgents, conflict and a split in their camp would be inevitable.
The immediate reason for the uprising of the Yaik Cossacks was the activity of the next investigative commission sent at the end of 1771 to analyze the complaints. The real task of the commission was to bring the Cossack masses to obedience. She conducted interrogations and arrests. In response, the disobedient Cossacks in January 1772 with a procession of the cross went to the Yaitsky town to submit a petition to Major General Traubenberg, who had arrived from the capital, to remove the military chieftain and foremen. The peaceful procession was shot from cannons, which provoked a Cossack uprising. The Cossacks defeated a detachment of soldiers, killed Traubenberg, the military chieftain and several representatives of the Cossack foreman.
Only after a new punitive detachment was sent against the Cossacks in June 1772, the unrest was suppressed: 85 of the most active rebels were exiled to Siberia, many others were fined. The Cossack military circle was liquidated, the military office was closed, and a commandant was appointed to the Yaitsky town. For a while the Cossacks became quiet, but;
it was uprising social material that could only be ignited.
In the summer of 1773, among the Yaik Cossacks, the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev, who had escaped from the Kazan prison, reappeared among the Yaik Cossacks, who by this time had already formed a small detachment of his associates.
The uprising began on September 17, 1773, when Pugachev, who had already declared himself the miraculously escaped Emperor Peter III, promulgated a manifesto in which he bestowed upon the Cossacks "rivers, herbs, lead, gunpowder, provisions and salaries." After that, his detachment, the number of which was growing rapidly and reached 200 people, approached the Yaitsky town. The team sent against the rebels went over to their side. Having abandoned the assault on the Yaitsky town, the garrison of which significantly outnumbered the forces of the Pugachevites, the rebels moved along the Yaitskaya fortified line to Orenburg, almost without encountering resistance.
More and more new forces poured into the detachment: the "triumphal" procession "of Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich" began. On October 5, 1773, the rebels began to siege the fortress of Orenburg, which had a garrison of 3,000.
In November 1773, in the Berlin settlement near Orenburg, which for a long time became the headquarters of Pugachev, a "State Military Collegium" was established. This body was created by analogy with the imperial institution and was designed to deal with the formation and supply of the rebel army. Its tasks included stopping the robberies of the local population and organizing the division of property seized from the landlords.
Then, in November 1773, the Pugachevites managed to defeat two detachments of government troops - General V.A.Kara and Colonel P.M. Chernyshev. These victories strengthened the rebels' confidence in their strength. They continued to Pugachev's camp. flock landlord and factory peasants, workers of the Ural factories, Bashkirs, Kalmyks and representatives of other peoples of the Volga and Ural regions.
By the end of 1773, the number of Pugachev's troops reached 30 thousand people, and its artillery numbered up to
80 guns.
From his headquarters in Berd, the impostor sends manifestos through his assistants and chieftains, which were sealed with the signature of "Peter III" and special seals, replete with references to "our grandfather, Peter the Great", which gave these documents in the eyes of peasants and working people the appearance of legal documents. At the same time, in order to raise the "royal" authority in Berd, a kind of court etiquette was established: Pugachev acquired his own guard, began to assign titles and ranks to his associates from his inner circle, and even established his own order.
In the winter of 1773/74, rebel detachments captured Buzuluk and Samara, Sarapul and Krasnoufimsk, besieged Kungur, and fought near Chelyabinsk. In the Urals, the Pugachevites took control of up to 3/4 of the entire metallurgical industry.
The government of Catherine II, realizing, at last, all the danger and scale of the movement, began to take active action. At the end of 1773; General-in-chief A.I.Bibikov, an experienced military engineer and artilleryman, was appointed commander-in-chief of the punitive troops. In Kazan, a secret commission was created to combat the uprising.
Having accumulated strength, Bibikov in mid-January 1774 launched a general offensive against the Pugachevites. The decisive battle took place on March 22 near the Tatishchev Fortress. Despite the fact that Pugachev had a numerical superiority, the government forces under the command of General P. M. Golitsyn inflicted a heavy defeat on him. The rebels lost more than a thousand people killed, many of the Pugachevites were captured.
Soon, a detachment of I.N. Chiki-Zarubin, an associate of the impostor, was defeated near Ufa, and on April 1, Golitsyn again defeated Pugachev's troops near the Samara town. With a detachment of 500 people, Pugachev went to the Urals.
This is how the first stage of the Pugachev era ended. The highest rise of the Pugachev uprising was still ahead.
The second stage covers the period from May to July 1774.
In the mining areas of the Urals, Pugachev again gathered an army of several thousand people and moved in the direction of Kazan. After a series of victories and defeats, on July 12, at the head of the 20,000-strong insurgent army, Pugachev "approached Kazan, captured the city and laid siege to the Kremlin, where the remnants of the garrison were locked up. The city's lower ranks supported the impostor. On the same day, a detachment of Lieutenant Colonel I. I. Mikhelson, who followed on the heels of the rebels, and forced them to retreat from Kazan.
In the decisive battle on July 15, 1774, the rebels were defeated, having lost many killed and captured. Most of the Bashkirs who joined the movement returned to their lands.
The remnants of the army of the rebels crossed over to the right bank of the Volga and set foot on the territory covered at that time by mass peasant unrest.
The third has begun The final stage Pugachev region. During this period, the movement reached its greatest scope.
Going down the Volga, Pugachev's detachment acted as a kind of catalyst for the anti-serfdom movement that swept the Penza, Tambov, Simbirsk and Nizhny Novgorod provinces during this period.
In July 1774, the impostor promulgated a manifesto containing exactly what the peasants expected from the good tsar: it proclaimed the abolition of serf bondage, recruitment, all taxes and fees, the transfer of land to the peasants, as well as the call to "catch, execute and hang ... villains-nobles ".
The fire of the peasant uprising was about to spread to the central regions of the country, its breath was felt even in Moscow. At the same time, the general shortcomings caused by the fragmentation, social heterogeneity and insufficient "organization of the Pugachev uprising began to show more and more. The rebels were increasingly defeated by the regular government" troops.
Clearly realizing the danger threatening the state, the government mobilized all its forces to fight Pugachev. The troops freed after the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhiyskiy peace with Turkey were transferred to the Volga region, to the Don and to the center of the country. From the Danube army, the famous commander A.V.Suvorov was sent to help Panin.
On August 21, 1774, Pugachev's detachments laid siege to Tsaritsyn. But they could not take the city and, seeing the threat of the approach of government troops, retreated.
Soon, the last major battle of the Pugachevites took place near the Salnikov plant, in which they suffered a crushing defeat. Pugachev with a small detachment fled across the Volga. He was still ready to continue the fight, but his own supporters betrayed the impostor to the government. On September 12, 1774, a group of Pugachev's associates, rich yaitskyh Cossacks, led by Tvorogov and Chumakov, seized him on the river. Uzeni. The impostor, chained in stocks, was brought to the Yaitsky town and handed over to the authorities. Then Pugachev was transported to Simbirsk, and from there in a wooden cage to Moscow.
On January 10, 1775, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, Pugachev and several of his loyal associates were executed.
After the suppression of the uprising, many Pugachevites were whipped, driven through the ranks, and sent to hard labor. All in all, at least 10 thousand people died in battles with regular troops during the uprising, about four times more people were wounded and maimed. On the other hand, the victims of the rebels were thousands of nobles, officials, priests, townspeople, ordinary soldiers and even peasants who did not want to obey the impostor.
The Pugachev uprising had important consequences for determining the further domestic policy of Catherine II. It clearly demonstrated the deep crisis of the entire society and the impossibility of postponing the overdue transformations, which should have been carried out slowly and gradually, relying on the nobility.
The immediate result of the Pugachevism in the field of internal policy of the government of Catherine II was the further strengthening of the noble reaction. At the same time, in 1775, one of the most important legislative acts of Catherine's era, "Institution for the Governance of the Provinces of the All-Russian Empire," was issued, in accordance with which an extensive regional reform was carried out and the system of local government was reorganized, as well as the structure of elective judicial-estate institutions was created.
However, the significance of the largest social confrontation in Russian pre-revolutionary history, which in terms of its scale and dynamics of the armed struggle is quite suitable for the category of civil wars, cannot be reduced only to the direct results reflected in the policy of the autocracy.
Historians have not yet given an unambiguous assessment of this event. Pugachev's uprising cannot be called a "senseless and merciless" popular revolt. Main feature Pugachev's uprising was an attempt to overcome the spontaneity of mass demonstrations using methods borrowed from the dominant political system. "The command and control of the rebels' troops and the training of these troops were organized, attempts were made to organize regular supplies of armed detachments. The radicalism of the rebels was expressed in the physical destruction of the nobility and officials without trial or investigation.
The movement caused enormous economic damage to the country. The rebels destroyed about 90 iron and copper smelters in the Urals and Siberia, many landlord farms were burned and plundered in the European part of Russia. relationships.

In the fall of 1773, the Pugachev uprising broke out. Until today, the events of those years do not reveal all their secrets. What was it: a Cossack revolt, a peasant uprising, or a civil war?

Peter III

Winners write history. The history of the Pugachev uprising is still considered a controversial moment in Russian history. According to the official version, Pugachev and Peter III are different people, they had no physiognomic similarity, no similarity of characters, and their upbringing was excellent. Nevertheless, some historians are still trying to prove the version that Pugachev and Emperor Peter are one person. The story of Emelka, a fugitive Cossack, was written by order of Catherine. This version, albeit a fantastic one, is confirmed by the fact that during the "investigation" of Pushkin, none of those whom he asked about Pugachev knew about him. People were absolutely convinced that the emperor himself was the head of the army, no more, no less. According to sources, the decision to call himself Peter III came to Pugachev not by chance. He, in principle, loved to mystify. Back in the army, for example, showing off his saber, he claimed that it was given to him by Peter I. It is not known for certain whose idea it was to assign a name, but that it was strategically beneficial is obvious. The people would not have followed the fugitive Cossack, but would have followed the Tsar. In addition, there were rumors among the people at that time that Peter wanted to give the peasants freedom, but "Katka ruined him." The promise of freedom to the peasants, in the end, became the trump card of Pugachev's propaganda.

Peasant War?

Was the war of 1773-1775 a peasant war? The question is, again, open. The main force of Pugachev's troops were, of course, not the peasants, but the Yaik Cossacks. Once free, they endured more and more oppression from the state and lost their privileges. In 1754, a monopoly on salt was introduced by Elizabeth's decree. This step dealt a strong blow to the economy of the Cossack army, which raised money by selling salted fish. Even before the Pugachev uprising, the Cossacks staged uprisings, which over and over again became more massive and coordinated.

Pugachev's initiative fell on fertile soil. The peasants really took an active part in the campaigns of the Pugachev army, but they defended their interests and solved their problems: they slaughtered the landowners, burned the estates, but, as a rule, did not go beyond their allotments. The binding of the peasantry to their land is a very strong thing. After Pugachev read a manifesto on liberty in Saransk, many peasants joined him, they turned Pugachev's campaign along the Volga region into a triumphal procession, with bells ringing, the blessing of the village father and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. But weakly armed, tied to their land, they could not provide a long-term triumph for the Pugachev uprising. In addition, it should be noted that Pugachev did not manage his troops alone. He had a whole headquarters of specialists who were definitely not of peasant origin, and some were not even Russian, but this side of the issue is a separate conversation.

Money question

The Pugachev uprising was the most massive uprising in the entire history of Russia (not counting the 1917 revolution). Such a rebellion could not have taken place from scratch. Raising thousands and thousands of people into an armed long-term rebellion is not a rally; this requires resources, and considerable resources. The question is: where did the fugitive Pugachev and the Yaik Cossacks get these resources from?

It has now been proven that the Pugachev uprising had foreign funding. First of all - the Ottoman Empire, with which Russia was at that time at war. Secondly, the help of France; that historical period she is the main opponent of the growing Russian Empire. From the correspondence of French residencies in Vienna and Constantinople, the figure of an experienced officer of the Navarre regiment emerges, who had to be transported from Turkey to Russia as soon as possible with instructions for the "so-called Pugachev's army." Paris allocated 50 thousand francs for the next operation. Supporting Pugachev was beneficial to all forces for which Russia and its growth posed a danger. There was a war with Turkey - forces were transferred from the fronts to fight Pugachev. As a result, Russia had to end the war on unfavorable terms. Such is the "peasant war" ...

To Moscow

After the triumph of Pugachev's troops in Penza and Saransk, everyone was waiting for his "Moscow campaign". He was also expected in Moscow. They were waiting and afraid. Seven regiments were pulled into the old capital, Governor-General Volkonsky ordered to put cannons near his house, “sweeps” were carried out among the inhabitants of Moscow, and all those who sympathized with the rebellious Cossack were seized.

Finally, in August 1774, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was in the Danube principalities. Panin instructed Suvorov to command the troops that were to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region. Moscow "exhaled", Pugachev decided not to go there. The reasons are still not clear. It is believed that the main reason for this was Pugachev's plans to attract the Volga and, especially, the Don Cossacks into his ranks. The Yaik Cossacks, who had lost many of their chieftains in the battles, were tired and began to grumble. Pugachev's "surrender" was brewing.

Salavat Yulaev

The memory of the Pugachev uprising is preserved not only in the archives, but also in toponyms and in the memory of the people. Salavat Yulaev is still considered the hero of Bashkiria. One of the strongest ice hockey teams in Russia bears the name of this extraordinary man. His story is amazing. Salavat became Pugachev's "right hand" when he was not 20 years old, took part in all major battles of the uprising, Pugachev conferred the rank of brigadier general on his young handy. In the army of Pugachev, Salavat ended up with his father. Together with his father, he was captured, sent to Moscow, and then into eternal exile in the Baltic city of Rogervik. Salavat was here until his death in 1800. He was not only an outstanding warrior, but also a good poet who left a solid literary heritage.

Suvorov

The danger that the Pugachev uprising lurked is indicated by the fact that Suvorov himself was not attracted to pacify it. Catherine understood that delaying the suppression of the uprising could result in serious geopolitical problems. Suvorov's participation in suppressing the riot played into the hands of Pushkin: when he was collecting material for his book about Pugachev, he said that he was looking for information about Suvorov. Alexander Vasilyevich personally escorted Pugachev. This indicates at least that Emelyan Ivanovich was not only an important person, but extremely important. It is highly unreasonable to regard the Pugachev uprising as another riot, it was a civil war, on the consequences of which the future of Russia depended.

A mystery shrouded in darkness

After the suppression of the riot and the executions of the main participants in the uprising, Catherine ordered to destroy all facts about the peasant war. The village in which Pugachev was born was moved and renamed, Yaik was renamed Ural. All documents that could somehow shed light on the course of those events were classified. There is a version that it was not Pugachev who was executed, but another person. Yemelyan, however, was “eliminated” in the Butyrka prison. The authorities feared provocations. Whether it is true or not, it is no longer possible to prove it. Half a century after those events, Pushkin could not "find the ends", it remains to wait for new research.