Peasant War of 1773-1775 led by Emelyan Pugachev (Pugachevshchina,Pugachev uprising, Pugachev revolt) - an uprising (revolt) of the Yaik Cossacks, which grew into a full-scale war under the leadership of E.I. Pugachev against Empress Catherine the Great.

The uprising covered the lands of the Yaitsk army, the Orenburg region, the Urals, the Kama region, Bashkiria, part of Western Siberia, the Middle and Lower Volga region. During the uprising, the Cossacks were joined by Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Chuvashs, Mokshans, Erzyans, Ural factory workers and numerous serfs from all the provinces where hostilities took place. The uprising began on September 17, 1773 from the Budarinsky outpost and continued until mid-1775, despite the military defeat of the Bashkir-Cossack army and the capture of Pugachev in September 1774.

Prerequisites for the uprising

An uprising that covered vast territories of the empire and attracted several hundred thousand people into its ranks, the reason for which was the miraculous announcement of the saved “king” Peter Fedorovich", basically had a complex of reasons, different for each of the groups of participants, but when added together, they led to actually the most ambitious civil war in the history of Russia from 1612 to 1917.

The main force of the uprising at first were the Yaik Cossacks. Throughout the 18th century, they lost privileges and liberties one after another, as the border Russian state was moving further and further away from them, the empire did not need Cossack forces here. In addition, Emperor Peter I subordinated all Cossack troops to the Military Collegium, which first approved and subsequently appointed a military chieftain. From that moment on, the so-called foreman, the stronghold of the government on Yaik, began to stand out, since the elimination of elections did not allow the Cossacks to replace the unwanted military chieftain. Starting with Ataman Merkuryev, in the 1730s there was an almost complete split of the Yaitsky Cossack army into the elder and military sides. The situation was aggravated by the monopoly on salt introduced by the royal decree of 1754. The economy of this army was entirely built on the sale of fish and caviar, and salt was a strategic product for it.

The ban on free salt mining and the emergence of salt tax farmers among the top troops led to a sharp stratification among the Cossacks. Starting from 1763, when the first major outburst of indignation occurred, and until the uprising of 1772, the Cossacks wrote petitions to Orenburg and St. Petersburg, sending so-called “winter villages” - delegates from the army with complaints about the atamans and local authorities. Sometimes they achieved their goal, and especially unacceptable atamans changed, but on the whole the situation remained the same.

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

The situation at the fast-growing factories of the Urals was also explosive. Beginning with Peter the Great, the government solved the problem of labor in metallurgy mainly by assigning state peasants to state-owned and private mining factories, allowing new factory owners to buy serf villages and granting the unofficial right to keep runaway serfs, since the Berg Collegium, which was in charge of factories, tried not to notice violations of the decree on the capture and deportation of all fugitives.

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

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

The beginning of the uprising

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

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

and the war with Turkey of 1768-1774.

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

Here a circle was convened, the troops elected Andrei Ovchinnikov, the Cossacks swore allegiance to “the great sovereign Emperor Peter Fedorovich,” after which Pugachev sent Ovchinnikov to the Iletsky town with inviting decrees to the Cossacks: “ And whatever you wish, all benefits and salaries will not be denied to you; and your glory will never expire; and both you and your descendants will be the first under me, the great sovereign, to obey».

Despite the opposition of the Iletsk ataman Portnov, Ovchinnikov convinced the local Cossacks to join the uprising; the residents of the town greeted Pugachev with the ringing of bells and bread and salt.

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

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

The Rassypnaya fortress was taken by a lightning assault on September 24; at the height of the battle, local Cossacks went over to the rebel side. On September 26, the Nizhneozernaya fortress was taken.

On September 27, the rebels appeared in front of the Tatishchev Fortress and began to convince the local garrison to surrender and join the army of “Sovereign Peter Fedorovich.” The fortress garrison consisted of at least a thousand soldiers, and the commandant, a colonel, hoped to fight back with the help of artillery. The firefight continued throughout the day. A detachment of Orenburg Cossacks sent on a sortie under the command of centurion Podurov went over to the side of the rebels. Having managed to set fire wooden walls fortresses, which started a fire in the town, and taking advantage of the panic that began in the town, the Cossacks broke into the fortress, after which most of the garrison laid down their arms. But the commandant and other officers resisted to the last, they honestly died in battle; and those captured, including members of their families, were shot. The daughter of the commandant of the Elagin fortress, Tatyana, the widow of the commandant of the Nizhneozernaya fortress who was killed a day earlier, was taken by Pugachev as a concubine. They left her young brother with her, before whose eyes they were killed after the battle. Cossack rebels shot Tatyana and her brother a month later.

With the artillery of the Tatishchev Fortress and the replenishment of people, Pugachev’s small, 2,000-strong detachment began to pose a real threat to Orenburg. On September 29, Pugachev solemnly entered the city, the garrison and whose residents swore allegiance to him.

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

On October 4, this entire army of rebels headed to the Berdskaya settlement near Orenburg, the inhabitants of which also swore allegiance to the “resurrected king.” By this time, the impostor’s army numbered about 2,500 people, of which about 1,500 Yaik, Iletsk and Orenburg Cossacks, 300 soldiers, 500 Kargaly Tatars. The artillery of the rebels numbered several dozen cannons.

Siege of Orenburg and first military successes

The capture of Orenburg became main task rebelled due to its importance as the capital of a huge region. If successful, the authority of the army and the leader of the uprising himself would have increased significantly, because the capture of each new town contributed to the unhindered capture of the next ones. In addition, it was important to capture the Orenburg weapons depots.

But Orenburg, in military terms, was a much more powerful fortification than even the Tatishchev fortress. An earthen rampart was erected around the city, fortified with 10 bastions and 2 half-bastions. The height of the shaft reached 4 meters and above, and the width - 13 meters. WITH outside along the shaft there was a ditch about 4 meters deep and 10 meters wide. The garrison of Orenburg consisted of about 3,000 people, of which about 1,500 were soldiers, as well as about a hundred cannons. On October 4, reinforcements of 626 Yaitsky Cossacks, who remained loyal to the Russian government, with 4 cannons, led by Yaitsky military foreman M. Borodin, managed to freely approach Orenburg from the Yaitsky town.

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

“there is timidity and fear in his subordinates”

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

On October 14, Catherine II appointed Major General V.A. Kara as commander of a military expedition to suppress the rebellion. At the end of October, Kar arrived in Kazan from St. Petersburg and, at the head of a corps of two thousand soldiers and one and a half thousand militia, headed towards Orenburg. On November 7, near the village of Yuzeeva, 98 versts from Orenburg, detachments of Pugachev atamans A.A. Ovchinnikov and I.N. Zarubina-Chiki attacked the vanguard of the Kara corps and, after a three-day battle, forced it to retreat back to Kazan. On November 13, a detachment of the colonel was captured near Orenburg, numbering up to 1,100 Cossacks, 600-700 soldiers, 500 Kalmyks, 15 guns and a huge convoy. Realizing that instead of an unprestigious victory over the rebels, he could receive complete defeat from untrained peasants and Bashkir-Cossack irregular cavalry, Kar, under the pretext of illness, left the corps and went to Moscow, leaving command to General Freiman.

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

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

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

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

In December, Ataman I.F. Arapov occupied the Elshanskaya, Borskaya and Krasnosamarskaya fortresses of the Samara line, on December 24 he entered Alekseevsk, 24 versts from Samara, on the 25th Arapov’s detachment entered Samara, solemnly greeted by its inhabitants. At the same time, residents of the Buguruslan settlement, the cities of Osa, Sarapul, and Zainsk also joined the uprising.

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

In total, according to rough estimates by historians, by the end of 1773 there were from 25 to 40 thousand people in the ranks of Pugachev’s army, more than half of this number were Bashkir detachments.

To control the troops, Pugachev created the Military Collegium, which served as an administrative and military center and conducted extensive correspondence with remote areas of the uprising. A. I. Vitoshnov, M. G. Shigaev, D. G. Skobychkin and I. A. Tvorogov were appointed judges of the Military Collegium, I. Ya. Pochitalin was appointed “Duma” clerk, and M. D. Gorshkov was appointed secretary.

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

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

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

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

On February 16, Khlopushi’s detachment stormed the Iletsk Defense, killing all the officers, seizing weapons, ammunition and provisions, and taking with them convicts, Cossacks and soldiers fit for military service.

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasant War area

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the morning of May 5, Pugachev’s detachment of five thousand approached the Magnetic Fortress. By this time, Pugachev’s detachment consisted mainly of weakly armed factory peasants and a small number of personal egg guards under the command of Myasnikov; the detachment did not have a single cannon. The start of the assault on Magnitnaya was unsuccessful, about 500 people died in the battle, Pugachev himself was wounded in right hand. Having withdrawn the troops from the fortress and discussed the situation, the rebels, under the cover of the darkness of the night, made a new attempt and were able to break into the fortress and capture it. 10 cannons, rifles, and ammunition were taken as trophies. On May 7, detachments of atamans A. Ovchinnikov, A. Perfilyev, I. Beloborodov approached Magnitnaya from different sides and, heading up the Yaik, the rebels captured the fortresses of Karagai, Petropavlovsk and Stepnaya and on May 20 approached the largest Trinity. By this time, the detachment numbered 10 thousand people. During the assault that began, the garrison tried to repel the attack with artillery fire, but overcoming desperate resistance, the rebels broke into Troitskaya. Pugachev received artillery with shells and reserves of gunpowder, supplies of provisions and fodder. On the morning of May 21, Delong's corps attacked the rebels resting after the battle. Taken by surprise, the Pugachevites suffered a heavy defeat, losing 4,000 people killed and the same number wounded and captured. Only one and a half thousand mounted Cossacks and Bashkirs were able to retreat along the road to Chelyabinsk.

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

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

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

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

Announced publicly

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

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

Date: July 31st, 1774.

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

Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia and so on,

and on and on and on.

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

The publication of decrees (in fact, manifestos on the liberation of peasants) in Saransk and Penza is called the culmination of the Peasant War. The decrees made a strong impression on the peasants, on the Old Believers hiding from persecution, on the opposite side - the nobles, and on Catherine II herself. The enthusiasm that gripped the peasants of the Volga region led to the fact that a population of more than a million people was involved in the uprising. They could give nothing to Pugachev’s army in the long-term military plan, since the peasant detachments operated no further than their estate.

But they turned Pugachev’s campaign across the Volga region into a triumphal procession, with bells ringing, the blessing of the village priest and bread and salt in every new village, village, town. When Pugachev’s army or its individual detachments approached, the peasants tied up or killed their landowners and their clerks, hanged local officials, burned estates, and smashed shops. In total, in the summer of 1774, at least 3 thousand nobles and government officials were killed. In the second half of July 1774, when the flames of the Pugachev uprising approached the borders of the Moscow province and threatened Moscow itself, the alarmed empress was forced to agree to the proposal of Chancellor N.I. Panin to appoint his brother, the disgraced general-in-chief Pyotr Ivanovich Panin, as commander of a military expedition against rebels. General F. F. Shcherbatov was expelled from this post on July 22, and by decree of July 29, Catherine II gave Panin emergency powers“in suppressing rebellion and restoring internal order in the provinces of Orenburg, Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod”

. It is noteworthy that under the command of P.I. Panin, who received the Order of St. for the capture of Bender in 1770. George I class, the Don cornet Emelyan Pugachev also distinguished himself in that battle. To speed up the conclusion of peace, the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty were softened, and the troops released on the Turkish borders - a total of 20 cavalry and infantry regiments - were recalled from the armies to act against Pugachev. As Ekaterina noted, against Pugachev“So many troops were equipped that such an army was almost terrible for its neighbors”

. It is noteworthy that in August 1774, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was located in the Danube principalities. Panin entrusted Suvorov with command of the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

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

“...I went to the village of Andreevskaya, where the peasants were keeping the landowner Dubensky under arrest in order to extradite him to Pugachev. I wanted to free him, but the village rebelled and the team was dispersed.

But from Penza Pugachev turned south. Most historians point to the reason for this as Pugachev’s plans to attract the Volga and, especially, Don Cossacks into his ranks. It is possible that another reason was the desire of the Yaik Cossacks, tired of fighting and having already lost their main atamans, to hide again in the remote steppes of the lower Volga and Yaik, where they had already taken refuge once after the uprising of 1772.

An indirect confirmation of such fatigue is that it was during these days that the conspiracy of Cossack colonels began to surrender Pugachev to the government in exchange for receiving a pardon.

On August 4, the impostor's army took Petrovsk, and on August 6, it surrounded Saratov. The governor with part of the people along the Volga managed to get to Tsaritsyn and after the battle on August 7, Saratov was taken.

Saratov priests in all churches served prayers for the health of Emperor Peter III. Here Pugachev sent a decree to the Kalmyk ruler Tsenden-Darzhe with a call to join his army. But by this time, punitive detachments under the overall command of Mikhelson were already literally on the heels of the Pugachevites, and on August 11 the city came under the control of government troops.

Panic began in Astrakhan. On August 24, at the Solenikovo fishing gang, Pugachev was overtaken by Mikhelson. Realizing that a battle could not be avoided, the Pugachevites formed battle formations. On August 25, the last major battle between the troops under the command of Pugachev and the tsarist troops took place. The battle began with a major setback - all 24 cannons of the rebel army were repulsed by a cavalry attack. More than 2,000 rebels died in a fierce battle, among them Ataman Ovchinnikov. More than 6,000 people were captured. Pugachev and the Cossacks, breaking up into small detachments, fled across the Volga.

Search detachments of generals Mansurov and Golitsyn, Yaik foreman Borodin and Don Colonel Tavinsky were sent in pursuit of them. Not having time for the battle, Lieutenant General Suvorov also wanted to participate in the capture. During August-September, most of the participants in the uprising were caught and sent for investigation to the Yaitsky town, Simbirsk, and Orenburg.

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

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

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

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

In November, all the main participants in the uprising were transported to Moscow for a general investigation. They were placed in the Mint building at the Iversky Gate of China Town. The interrogations were led by Prince M.N. Volkonsky and Chief Secretary S.I. Sheshkovsky. During interrogation, E. I. Pugachev gave detailed testimony about his relatives, about his youth, about his participation in the Don Cossack Army in the Seven Years and Turkish wars , about his wanderings around Russia and Poland, about his plans and intentions, about the progress of the uprising. Investigators tried to find out whether the initiators of the uprising were agents of foreign states, or schismatics, or anyone from the nobility. Catherine II showed great interest in the progress of the investigation. In the materials of the Moscow investigation, several notes from Catherine II to M.N. Volkonsky were preserved with wishes about the plan in which the investigation should be conducted, which issues require the most complete and detailed investigation, which witnesses should be additionally interviewed. On December 5, M.N. Volkonsky and P.S. Potemkin signed a determination to terminate the investigation, since Pugachev and other defendants could not add anything new to their testimony during interrogations and could not in any way alleviate or aggravate their guilt. In their report to Catherine they were forced to admit that they.

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

The captive Salavat Yulaev and his father Yulay Azgalin were exiled to hard labor in the Baltic port of Rogervik (Estonia). The other leader of the Bashkir performance, Kinzyu Arslanov, who fled across the Volga with Pugachev, was never found, and his further fate is unknown. In 1783-1786. In the Altai Mountain District, a member of Pugachev’s army, Pyotr Khripunov, was preparing to continue the uprising, but was handed over to the authorities. After brutal interrogations, Khripunov was declared insane and was kept in custody in the fortress of St. Peter (modern Petropavlovsk).

Results of the Peasant War

After carrying out the executions and punishments of the main participants in the uprising, Catherine II, in order to eradicate any mention of events related to the Pugachev movement and which put her rule in a bad light in Europe, first of all issued decrees to rename all places associated with these events. Thus, the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don, where Pugachev was born, was renamed Potemkinskaya, and the house itself where Pugachev was born was ordered to be burned. The Yaik River was renamed into the Ural, the Yaitsky army - into the Ural Cossack army, the Yaitsky town - into Uralsk, and the Verkhne-Yaitskaya pier - into Verkhneuralsk. The name of Pugachev was anathematized in churches along with Stenka Razin; to describe events it is possible to use only words like “well-known popular confusion,” etc.

Decree of the Government Senate

“...for complete oblivion of this on Yaik
the ensuing accident,
the Yaik River, along which both this army and
the city still had its name,
due to the fact that this river flows from
Ural Mountains, rename the Ural, and therefore
call the army Ural, and henceforth Yaitsky
not to name it, but also to call it Yaitsky city
from now on Uralsk; about what for information and performance
This is how it is published.”

In 1775, a provincial reform followed, according to which the provinces were disaggregated, and there were 50 of them instead of 20.

The policy towards the Cossack troops has been adjusted, and the process of their transformation into army units is accelerating. Cossack officers were increasingly given the nobility with the right to own their own serfs, thereby establishing the military sergeant major as a stronghold of the government. At the same time, economic concessions are being made in relation to the Ural Army.

Approximately the same policy is being pursued in relation to the peoples of the region of the uprising. The decree of February 22, 1784 established the nobility of the local nobility. Tatar and Bashkir princes and Murzas are equal in rights and liberties to the Russian nobility, including the right to own serfs, although only of the Muslim religion. But at the same time, the attempt to enslave the non-Russian population of the region was abandoned; the Bashkirs, Kalmyks and Mishars were left in the position of the military service population. In 1798, cantonal administration was introduced in Bashkiria; in the newly formed 24 canton regions, administration was carried out on a military basis. Kalmyks were also transferred to the rights of the Cossack class.

In 1775, Kazakhs were allowed to roam within traditional pastures that fell outside the border lines of the Urals and Irtysh. But this relaxation came into conflict with the interests of the expanding border Cossack troops; some of these lands had already been registered as estates of the new Cossack nobility or farms of ordinary Cossacks. Friction led to the fact that the unrest in the Kazakh steppes, which had calmed down, began to unfold with renewed vigor. The leader of the uprising, which ultimately lasted more than 20 years, was a member of Pugachev’s movement, Syrym Datov.

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

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

Memory

In the Soviet years, the memory of E. Pugachev and his associates was immortalized in toponomics: in Russia and Ukraine there are Pugachev and Salavat Yulaev streets. In the capital of the Republic of Mordovia, Saransk, a monument was erected to E. Pugachev. In Bashkortostan, the image of Salavat Yulaev is immortalized on the republican coat of arms, and monuments have been erected in his honor in a number of settlements.

Research and collections of archival documents

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

Pugachevism. Collection of documents.

Volume 1. From the Pugachev archive. Documents, decrees, correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1926.

Volume 2. From investigative materials and official correspondence. M.-L., Gosizdat, 1929

• Volume 3. From the Pugachev archive. M.-L., Sotsekgiz, 1931
• Peasant War 1773-1775 in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. M., 1973
• Peasant War 1773-1775 on the territory of Bashkiria. Collection of documents. Ufa, 1975
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Chuvashia. Collection of documents. Cheboksary, 1972
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Udmurtia. Collection of documents and materials. Izhevsk, 1974
• Gorban N.V. Peasantry of Western Siberia in the Peasant War of 1773-75. // Questions of history. 1952. No. 11.

Muratov Kh. I. Peasant War 1773-1775. in Russia. M., Voenizdat, 1954

Art

• Pugachev's uprising in fiction
• A. S. Pushkin “The Captain's Daughter”
• S. A. Yesenin “Pugachev” (poem)
• S. P. Zlobin “Salavat Yulaev”
• E. A. Fedorov “Stone Belt” (novel). Book 2 “Heirs”
• V. Ya. Shishkov “Emelyan Pugachev (novel)”
• V. I. Buganov “Pugachev” (biography in the series “Life of Remarkable People”)

V. I. Mashkovtsev “Golden Flower - Overcome” (historical novel). - Chelyabinsk, South Ural Book Publishing House, 1990, ISBN 5-7688-0257-6.

• Cinema
• (1937) - feature film. Directed by Pavel Petrov-Bytov.
• Salavat Yulaev (1940) - feature film. Directed by Yakov Protazanov.
• The Captain's Daughter (1959) - a feature film based on the story of the same name by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
• (1978) - historical duology: “Slaves of Freedom” and “Will Washed in Blood” directed by Alexei Saltykov.

Russian Revolt (1999) - a historical film based on the works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin “The Captain's Daughter” and “The Story of Pugachev”.- the third peasant war in Russia against feudal-serf oppression. Covered a huge territory: the Orenburg region, the Urals, the Urals, Western Siberia, the Middle and Lower Volga regions. Involved in the movement up to 100 thousand active rebels - Russian peasants, working layers of the Cossacks and non-Russian nationalities - openly revealing antagonistic class relations in the conditions of further development and strengthening of new relations in the bowels of the old system.

The situation in the country the day before

The class struggle on the eve of the peasant war of 1773-1775 took the most various shapes social protest, which, however, did not affect the foundations of the existing system. Only in the peasant war did the people spontaneously rise up to fight for their national class interests: for the overthrow of the feudal system, but while maintaining the same, traditional form state power in the form of a monarchy headed by a “good peasant king.”

On the eve of the Peasant War, major uprisings swept up to 250 thousand landowners, monasteries and mining peasants. The unrest affected Kalmyks, Bashkirs and other peoples of the Trans-Volga region. In September 1771, an uprising of the urban lower classes broke out in Moscow. Many years of unrest among the laboring Cossacks of the Yaitsky army led in January 1772 to an uprising against the senior elite. In 1772, there was unrest among the Cossacks of the Volga and Don villages. The government of Catherine II had great difficulty in keeping the people in obedience. The war with Turkey of 1768-74 and events in Poland further complicated the situation in the country and caused people's dissatisfaction with new hardships.

The beginning of the uprising

The Peasant War began in September 1773 in the Volga steppes with a new uprising of the Yaik Cossacks, led by the Don Cossack E.I. Pugachev. Back in August 1773, he gathered reliable supporters from the Cossacks on farms near the Yaitsky town, seeing the main social force of the movement not in the Cossacks, but in the serf peasantry. Pugachev took the name of Emperor Peter III, which objectively corresponded to the naive monarchical illusions that lived among the people. By mid-September 1773, preparations for the uprising were completed. Pugachev assembled the first rebel detachment of 80 Cossacks. On September 17, he published a manifesto in which he granted the Cossacks, Tatars and Kalmyks who served in the Yaitsky army the ancient Cossack liberties and privileges. On September 19, the rebels approached the Yaitsky town, but, lacking artillery, abandoned the assault on the fortress. From here Pugachev undertook a campaign to Orenburg, replenishing the detachment with Cossacks, soldiers, Tatars, Kalmyks, Kazakhs and landowner peasants, capturing cannons, weapons and ammunition. On October 5, the rebels blocked Orenburg, having up to 2.5 thousand soldiers with 20 guns, and kept it under siege for about 6 months.

Siege of Orenburg and first military successes

Rumors about the rebels' military successes caused spontaneous unrest among the landowners and mining peasants and the non-Russian population of the Orenburg province. Pugachev began systematically organizing the uprising, spreading it to new areas. From Berdskaya Sloboda, envoys were sent to villages and factories with manifestos from Pugachev, who declared eternal will to the people, freed them from forced labor for landowners and factory owners, from taxes and duties, granted land, called for the extermination of serf owners, and proclaimed freedom for all religions. A significant part of the Orenburg province came under the power of the rebel center. Thousands of volunteers went to the rebel camp. The peasants brought food and fodder; guns, weapons, and ammunition were delivered from the Ural factories.

By the beginning of December 1773, Pugachev’s detachments near Orenburg had up to 25 thousand soldiers with 86 guns. To control the army, Pugachev created the Military Collegium, which at the same time served as the administrative and political center of the uprising. The government organized a punitive detachment led by General Kar. In early November, he came to the aid of besieged Orenburg, but was defeated in the battle of November 7-9 near the village of Yuzeeva. In November, other punitive detachments traveling to Orenburg from Simbirsk and Siberia were also defeated. In November 1773 - early January 1774, the uprising swept the Southern Urals, a significant part of the Kazan province, Western Siberia, and Western Kazakhstan. The people of Bashkiria, led by Kinzya Arslanov and Salavat Yulaev, rebelled. Large centers of the insurgent movement formed near Ufa - I. Chika-Zarubi, Yekaterinburg - I. Beloborodov, Chelyabinsk - I. Gryaznov, Samara - I. Arapov, Zainsk - V. Tornov, Kungur and Krasnoufimsk - I. Kuznetsov, Salavat Yulaev, Yaitskiy town - M. Tolkachev). The lack of a unified strategic plan and weak communication with remote areas of the uprising led to the fact that the Military College was unable to lead the movement throughout the entire territory. Busy with the siege of Orenburg and the Yaitsky town, Pugachev abandoned the campaign in the Volga region, which was ready for an uprising. This limited the strategic base of the peasant war, allowing the government to gain time and gather military forces.

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasant War area

In December 1773, several cavalry and infantry regiments led by General A.I. Bibikov were sent to the areas of the uprising, who launched an offensive and inflicted a series of defeats on the rebels near Samara, Kungur, and Buzuluk. Pugachev was unable to provide assistance to his vanguard detachments, which fought an unequal fight and retreated along the entire front. Only after the fall of Buzuluk did he withdraw part of his forces from near Orenburg and try to stop the further advance of the enemy. For the general battle, Pugachev chose the heavily fortified Tatishchev fortress. In the battle of March 22, the rebels were routed, losing all their artillery and suffering heavy casualties. On March 24, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhelson’s corps defeated the rebels near Ufa, and soon captured their ataman I Chika-Zarubin. Having lifted the siege of Orenburg, Pugachev retreated to Kargale, where on April 1 he gave a new battle to the punitive troops, but, having suffered large losses, having lost prominent assistants captured (M. Shigaev, T. Podurov, A. Vitoshnov, M. Gorshkov, I. Pochitalin), took refuge in the Ural Mountains.

Large centers of the uprising were defeated by mid-April 1774, but individual detachments were active in the Zakamsky region, in Bashkiria (Salavat Yulaev), in the factories of the Southern Urals (Beloborodov), in the Orenburg steppes (Ovchinnikov). Pugachev led the active organization of a new rebel army, and with his appeals raised the whole of Bashkiria and the factory Urals to revolt. Having gathered 5 thousand soldiers, Pugachev captured the Magnetic Fortress on May 6 (May 6) and united here with the detachments of Beloborodov and Ovchinnikov. Moving up the Yaik, he stormed the Trinity Fortress), but on May 20 he was defeated and again went into the Ural Mountains. Mikhelson's corps, pursuing Pugachev, inflicted a number of defeats on him, but Pugachev, skillfully using the tactics of partisan warfare, each time evaded pursuit and saved the main forces from final defeat, and then again gathered troops of thousands. Driven out of the factory districts of the Urals by mid-June 1774, Pugachev decided to withdraw his troops to Kazan, take it and undertake the long-planned campaign against Moscow. On July 12, rebel troops stormed Kazan, captured the outskirts and the city, but were unable to take the fortress where the remnants of the garrison settled, and were defeated by Michelson’s corps that arrived in time. A new battle for Kazan took place on July 15. Having lost all the artillery, up to 2 thousand killed and 5 thousand captured, Pugachev retreated north and crossed to the right bank of the Volga near Sundyr.

Defeat of the uprising

The appearance of rebels on the right bank of the Volga caused a general peasant uprising, supported by the non-Russian peoples of the Volga region. On July 18, Pugachev published a manifesto on the liberation of peasants from serfdom, on the free transfer of land to the people, and on the widespread extermination of nobles. The forces of the rebels grew. In the Volga region, in addition to the main rebel army, there were numerous peasant detachments, numbering hundreds and thousands of fighters. The movement covered most of the Volga districts, approached the borders of the Moscow province, and really threatened Moscow, where the urban lower classes, factory and lordly people were worried. Real conditions arose for the rebel army to march on Moscow, relying on numerous centers of the peasant movement. But Pugachev made a strategic mistake by leaving the areas of the greatest scope of the peasant movement, and rushed with his main forces to the south, to the Don, where he hoped to replenish the troops with Don Cossacks and only then undertake a campaign against Moscow. Pugachev’s troops, moving south, met the support of the common people everywhere. On July 20, the rebels took Kurmysh, on July 23 - Alatyr, on July 27 - Saransk, on August 2 - Penza, on August 4 - Petrovsk, on August 6 - Saratov. Gathering volunteers from peasants, townspeople and Cossacks, Pugachev went further and further south, leaving behind dozens of local, scattered rebel detachments.

Pugachev’s erroneous strategic plan allowed the punitive forces to crush the peasant movement in the Middle Volga region piece by piece and push the main rebel forces south into the sparsely populated areas of the Lower Volga region. In August 1774, Catherine II assembled a huge army to fight the rebels: up to 20 infantry and cavalry regiments, Cossack units and noble corps. Pugachev’s army managed to take Dmitrievsk (Kamyshin) and Dubovka, and enticed the Kalmyks with them, but the attempt to take Tsaritsyn by storm failed. Here many Don Cossacks left Pugachev, and the Kalmyks left. Pursued by Mikhelson's corps, Pugachev retreated to Black Yar, losing hope of raising the Don Cossacks to revolt. On August 25, the last major battle took place at the Solenikova gang. Due to the betrayal of a group of conspirators - the Yaik Cossack elders - the rebels lost their artillery at the beginning of the battle. Pugachev was defeated, fled to the Volga steppes, but was soon arrested and taken to the Yaitsky town on September 15.

The investigation of Pugachev was carried out in Yaitsky town, Simbirsk and Moscow, where other prominent figures of the Peasant War were also taken. By court verdict, on January 10, 1775, Pugachev, Perfilyev, Shigaev, Podurov and Tornov were executed on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow; the rest of the accused were subjected to corporal punishment and were sent to hard labor. In February 1775, Chika-Zarubin was executed in Ufa. The peasant war did not end after the defeat of the main rebel. troops. Until November 1774, Salavat Yulaev’s detachments were active in Bashkiria. The peasants of the Middle Volga region and Central provinces continued to fight. The movement in the Lower Volga region was suppressed only in the summer of 1775. Mass repressions against the population of the Volga region and Orenburg province continued until mid-1775.

The reasons for the defeat and the results of the Peasant War led by Emelyan Pugachev

The Peasant War of 1773-1775 suffered defeat, inevitable for any spontaneous action of the peasantry in the era of feudalism. The reasons for the defeat of the Peasant War were rooted in the spontaneity and fragmentation of the movement, in the absence of a clearly realized program of struggle. Pugachev and his Military Collegium were unable to organize an army to successfully fight government troops. The ruling class and the state opposed the spontaneous action of the people with the regular army, the administrative and police apparatus, finance, and the church. The people suffered a heavy defeat, but gained experience in revolutionary struggle. The Peasant War shook the people's faith in the inviolability of feudal orders and accelerated the collapse of serfdom. The subsequent development of the class struggle of the Russian peasantry in the 18th and 19th centuries was influenced by the example of the Peasants' War. Fear of a new peasant war forced tsarism in 1861 to implement the peasant reform of 1861.

The great questions of the time are decided not by speeches and resolutions of the majority, but by iron and blood!

Otto von Bismarck

By the middle of the 18th century, a catastrophic situation had developed for serfs in Russia. They had virtually no rights. Landowners killed serfs, beat them to death, tortured them, sold them, gave them as gifts, lost them at cards and exchanged them for dogs. This arbitrariness and complete impunity of the landowners led to the rise of the peasant war.

Causes of the war

Emelyan Pugachev was born on the Don. He served in the Russian army and even took part in the Seven Years' War. However, in 1771, the future leader of the rebel peasants fled the army and went into hiding. In 1773, Pugachev headed to Yaik, where he declared himself to be the miraculously saved Emperor Peter 3. A war began, which can be divided into three main stages.

The first stage of the peasant war

The Peasant War led by Pugachev began on September 17, 1773. On this day, Pugachev spoke before the Cossacks and declared himself Emperor Peter 3, who miraculously managed to escape. The Cossacks eagerly supported the new “emperor” and within the first month about 160 people joined Pugachev. The war has begun. Pugachev's forces rampaged through the southern lands, capturing cities. Most cities did not offer resistance to the rebels, since revolutionary sentiments were very strong in the south of Russia. Pugachev entered cities without a fight, where residents joined his ranks. On October 5, 1773, Pugachev approached Orenburg and besieged the city. Empress Catherine 2 sent a detachment of one and a half thousand people to suppress the rebellion. The army was led by General Kara. There was no general battle; the government troops were defeated by Pugachev's ally, A. Ovchinnikov. Panic seized the besieged Orenburg. The siege of the city had already lasted six months. The Empress again sent an army against Pugachev, led by General Bibikov. On March 22, 1774, a battle took place near the Tatishchev Fortress, in which Bibikov won. At this point the first stage of the war was over. Its result: Pugachev’s defeat from the tsarist army and failure at the siege of Orenburg.

The second stage of the war under the leadership of Emelyan Pugachev

The peasant war led by Pugachev continued with the second stage, which lasted from April to July 1774. At this time, Pugachev, who was forced to lift the siege of Orenburg, retreated to Bashkiria. Here his army was replenished by the workers of the Ural factories. In a short time, the size of Pugachev’s army exceeded 10 thousand people, and after moving deeper into Bashkiria, 20 thousand. In July 1774, Pugachev's army approached Kazan. The rebels managed to capture the outskirts of the city, but the Kremlin, in which the royal garrison took refuge, was impregnable. Mikhelson with a large army went to help the besieged city. Pugachev deliberately spread false rumors about the fall of Kazan and the destruction of Michelson’s army. The Empress was horrified by this news and was preparing to leave Russia at any moment.

The third and final stage of the war

The peasant war under the leadership of Pugachev at its final stage acquired real mass appeal. This was facilitated by the Decree of July 31, 1774, which was issued by Pugachev. He, as “Emperor Peter 3”, announced the complete liberation of peasants from dependence and exemption from all taxes. As a result, all southern lands were absorbed by the rebels. Pugachev, having captured a number of cities on the Volga, went to Tsaritsyn, but failed to capture this city. As a result, he was betrayed by his own Cossacks, who, wanting to soften their feelings, captured Pugachev on September 12, 1774 and handed him over to the tsarist army. was completed. Individual uprisings in the south of the country continued, but within a year they were finally suppressed.

On January 10, 1775, on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, Pugachev and all his immediate circle were executed. Many of those who supported the “emperor” were killed.

Results and significance of the uprising

Peasant War Map

Key dates

Chronology of events of the peasant war by Emelyan Pugachev:

• September 17, 1773 - the beginning of the peasant war.
• October 5, 1773 - Pugchev’s troops began the siege of Orenburg.
• March 22, 1774 - battle at the Tatishchev fortress.
• July 1774 - battles for Kazan.
• July 31, 1774 - Pugachev declares himself Peter 3.
• September 12, 1774 - Emelyan Pugachev was captured.
• January 10, 1775 - after much torture, Pugachev was executed.

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

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

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

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

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

The beginning of the uprising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Map initial stage uprisings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Military defeats and expansion of the Peasant War area

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

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

Map of the second stage of the Peasant War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

View of the Kazan Kremlin

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

Announced publicly

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

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

Date: July 31st, 1774.

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

Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia and so on,

And on and on and on.

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

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

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

To speed up the conclusion of peace, the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Peace Treaty were softened, and the troops released on the Turkish borders - a total of 20 cavalry and infantry regiments - were recalled from the armies to act against Pugachev. As Ekaterina noted, against Pugachev “So many troops were equipped that such an army was almost terrible for its neighbors”. It is noteworthy that in August 1774, Lieutenant General Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, at that time already one of the most successful Russian generals, was recalled from the 1st Army, which was located in the Danube principalities. Panin entrusted Suvorov with command of the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

. It is noteworthy that 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 located in the Danube principalities. Panin entrusted Suvorov with command of the troops that were supposed to defeat the main Pugachev army in the Volga region.

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

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

Map final stage uprisings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pugachev under escort. Engraving from the 1770s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Research and collections of archival documents

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

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

• Volume 3. From the Pugachev archive. M.-L., Sotsekgiz, 1931
• Peasant War 1773-1775 in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. M., 1973
• Peasant War 1773-1775 on the territory of Bashkiria. Collection of documents. Ufa, 1975
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Chuvashia. Collection of documents. Cheboksary, 1972
• Peasant war led by Emelyan Pugachev in Udmurtia. Collection of documents and materials. Izhevsk, 1974
• Gorban N.V. Peasantry of Western Siberia in the Peasant War of 1773-75. // Questions of history. 1952. No. 11.

Muratov Kh. I. Peasant War 1773-1775. in Russia. M., Voenizdat, 1954

Art

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

V. I. Mashkovtsev “Golden Flower - Overcome” (historical novel). - Chelyabinsk, South Ural Book Publishing House, 1990, ISBN 5-7688-0257-6.

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

Links

• Bolshakov L. N. Orenburg Pushkin Encyclopedia
• Vaganov M. Report of Major Mirzabek Vaganov on his mission to Nurali Khan. March-June 1774 / Report. V. Snezhnevsky // Russian antiquity, 1890. - T. 66. - No. 4. - P. 108-119. - Under the title: On the history of the Pugachev rebellion. In the steppe among the Kirghiz-Kaisaks March - 1774 - June.
• Military campaign journal of the commander of the punitive corps, Lieutenant Colonel I. Mikhelson, about military operations against the rebels in March - August 1774.// Peasant War 1773-1775. in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. - M.: Nauka, 1973. - P. 194-223.
• Gvozdikova I. Salavat Yulaev: historical portrait (“Belskie Prostori”, 2004)
• Diary of a member of the noble militia of the Kazan province “About Pugachev. His villainous actions"// Peasant War 1773-1775. in Russia. Documents from the collection of the State Historical Museum. - M.: Nauka, 1973. - P. 58-65.
• Dobrotvorsky I. A. Pugachev on the Kama // Historical Bulletin, 1884. - T. 18. - No. 9. - P. 719-753.
• Catherine II. Letters from Empress Catherine II to A.I. Bibikov during the Pugachev rebellion (1774) / Communication. V. I. Lamansky // Russian Archive, 1866. - Issue. 3. - Stb. 388-398.
• Peasant war led by Pugachev on the website History of the Orenburg region
• Peasant War led by Pugachev (TSB)
• Kulaginsky P. N. Pugachevites and Pugachev in Tresvyatsky-Elabuga in 1773-1775. / Message P. M. Makarov // Russian antiquity, 1882. - T. 33. - No. 2. - P. 291-312.
• Lopatina. Letter from Arzamas dated September 19, 1774 / Communication. A. I. Yazykov // Russian antiquity, 1874. - T. 10. - No. 7. - P. 617-618. - Under the title: Pugachevism.
• Mertvago D. B. Notes of Dmitry Borisovich Mertvago. 1790-1824. - M.: type. Gracheva and K, 1867. - XIV, 340 stb. - Adj. to the “Russian Archive” for 1867 (Issue 8-9).
• Definition of the Kazan nobility on the assembly of a cavalry corps of troops from their people against Pugachev// Readings at the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University, 1864. - Book. 3/4. Dept. 5. - pp. 105-107.
• Oreus I.I. Ivan Ivanovich Mikhelson, winner of Pugachev. 1740-1807 // Russian antiquity, 1876. - T. 15. - No. 1. - P. 192-209.
• Pugachev sheets in Moscow. 1774 Materials// Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 13. - No. 6. - P. 272-276. , No. 7. - P. 440-442.
• Pugachevshchina. New materials for the history of the Pugachev region// Russian antiquity, 1875. - T. 12. - No. 2. - P. 390-394; No. 3. - pp. 540-544.

• Collection of documents on the history of the Pugachev uprising on the website Vostlit.info
• Cards: Map of the lands of the Yaitsky army, the Orenburg region and the Southern Urals, Map of the Saratov province (maps of the early 20th century)

1773–1775 - Peasant war led by E. Pugachev. In the 60s XVIII century The government introduced a state monopoly on fishing and salt production on Yaik. This caused discontent among the Cossacks. At the end of 1771, a commission led by Major General Traubenberg arrived on Yaik, whose task was to suppress the uprising of the Cossacks. Interrogations and arrests began. In January 1772, in response to the actions of Traubenberg (the shooting of Cossacks from cannons - more than 100 people were killed), an uprising broke out.

At the end of May, the authorities sent an army led by General Freiman to Yaik. 85 of the most active rebels were punished and exiled to Siberia, the rest were fined. The military circle and the military office were liquidated, and soldiers were placed in the Cossack houses. IN next year Cossacks rose under the banner of Peter III Fedorovich. The mysterious death of the emperor caused many impostors to appear under his name. The most famous of them was the Don Cossack Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev.

In September 1773, Pugachev appeared at the Budarinsky outpost, 5 versts from the Yaitsky town. Pugachev headed up the Yaik to Orenburg, the center of the border line of fortresses, an important strategic point in the southeast of the country. Pugachev took the Tatishchev fortress by storm. At the beginning of October, his army approached Orenburg, and assaults and battles began under the walls of the city. The rebel camp was located near Orenburg in the Berdskaya Sloboda. Here Pugachev and his accomplices created the Military Collegium - the highest body of power and management of military and civil affairs. The uprising swept through the Southern and Middle Urals, Western Siberia, Bashkiria, Volga region, Don.

The authorities gathered the regiments and sent them to Orenburg. A general battle took place in the Tatishchev Fortress between the forces of Pugachev and the army of General Golitsyn. After the defeat, Pugachev withdrew his remaining forces from near Orenburg. But near the Samara town Golitsyn again defeated the rebels. Pugachev went to Bashkiria, then to the Southern Urals. The rebel detachments of Salavat Yulaev operated here. Pugachev’s detachment captured several factories, then occupied the Trinity Fortress. But here he was defeated by Kolong.

Pugachev went to Zlatoust. In May 1774, he entered into battle several times with Michelson’s army, but was defeated. Yulaev and Pugachev, having united their forces, moved west to the Volga.
Pugachev with 2 thousand people crossed the Volga and moved west. In the Right Bank, Pugachev’s detachment was replenished with several thousand people and began to move south along the right bank of the Volga. Pugachev occupied Penza, Saratov, and began the siege of Tsaritsyn, but Mikhelson’s approaching corps threw the rebels back to the southeast.

At the end of August 1774, the last battle took place near the Salnikov plant, in which Pugachev suffered a final defeat. He, with a small group of people, headed to the left bank of the Volga, where he was betrayed by the Cossacks. In September 1774, Pugachev was brought to the Budarinsky outpost. On January 10, 1775, Pugachev and his associates were executed on Bolotnaya Square.