Stenka Razin is the hero of the song, a violent robber who drowned the Persian princess in a fit of jealousy. Here's everything most people know about him. And all this is not true, a myth.
The real Stepan Timofeevich Razin - an outstanding commander, politician, "father of the native" of all the humiliated and insulted, was executed either on Red or on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on June 16, 1671. He was quartered, his body was cut into pieces and put up on high poles near the Moscow River. It hung there for at least five years.
"A sedate man with an arrogant face"
Either from hunger, or from harassment and lawlessness, he fled from Voronezh to the free Don Timofey Razya. Being a strong, energetic, courageous man, he soon joined the ranks of the "household", that is, rich Cossacks. He married a Turkish woman captured by him, who gave birth to three sons: Ivan, Stepan and Frol.
The appearance of the middle of the brothers is described by the Dutchman Jan Streis: "He was a tall and sedate man, strong build, with an arrogant straight face. He behaved modestly, with great severity." Many features of his appearance and character are contradictory: for example, there is evidence from the Swedish ambassador that Stepan Razin knew eight languages.
On the other hand, according to legend, when he and Frol were tortured, Stepan joked: "I heard that only learned people are shaved as priests, you and I are both unlearned, but still we waited for such an honor."
shuttle diplomat
By the age of 28, Stepan Razin becomes one of the most prominent Cossacks on the Don. Not only because he was the son of a well-to-do Cossack and the godson of the military ataman Kornila Yakovlev himself: diplomatic qualities appear in Stepan before the qualities of a commander.
By 1658, he was sent to Moscow as part of the Don embassy. He performs the assignment exemplarily, in the Ambassadorial Order he is even noted as a sensible and energetic person. Soon he reconciles Kalmyks and Nagai Tatars in Astrakhan.
Later, in campaigns, Stepan Timofeevich will repeatedly resort to cunning and diplomatic tricks. For example, at the end of a long and ruinous campaign for the country "for zipuns" Razin will not only not be arrested as a criminal, but will be released with an army and part of the weapons to the Don: this is the result of negotiations between the Cossack ataman and the royal governor Lvov.
Moreover, Lvov "adopted Stenka as his named son and, according to Russian custom, presented him with the image of the Virgin Mary in a beautiful gold frame."
Fighter against bureaucracy and tyranny
A brilliant career awaited Stepan Razin, if an event had not happened that radically changed his attitude to life. During the war with the Commonwealth, in 1665, Stepan's elder brother Ivan Razin decided to take his detachment home from the front, to the Don. After all, a Cossack is a free man, he can leave when he wants. The sovereign governors had a different opinion: they caught up with Ivan's detachment, arrested the freedom-loving Cossack and put him to death as a deserter. The extrajudicial execution of his brother shocked Stepan.
Hatred of the aristocracy and sympathy for the poor, disenfranchised people finally took root in him, and two years later he begins to prepare a big campaign "for zipuns", that is, for prey, in order to feed the Cossack hoard, for twenty years, since the introduction serfdom, flocking to the free Don.
The fight against the boyars and other oppressors will become the main slogan of Razin in his campaigns. And the main reason for the fact that at the height of the Peasant War, up to two hundred thousand people will be under his banner.
Cunning commander
The leader of the bareness turned out to be an inventive commander. Posing as merchants, the Razintsy took the Persian city of Farabat. For five days, they traded in goods they had stolen earlier, scouting where the houses of the richest citizens were located. And, having scouted, they robbed the rich.
Another time, by cunning, Razin defeated the Ural Cossacks. This time, the Razintsy pretended to be pilgrims. Entering the city, a detachment of forty men seized the gate and allowed the entire army to enter. The local ataman was killed, but the Yaik Cossacks did not show resistance to the Don Cossacks.
But the main of Razin's "smart" victories was in the Battle of Pig Lake, in the Caspian Sea not far from Baku. On fifty ships, the Persians sailed to the island where the Cossacks camped. Seeing the enemy, whose forces exceeded their own several times, the Razintsy rushed to the plows and, ineptly controlling them, tried to swim away.
The Persian naval commander Mammad Khan took a cunning maneuver for an escape and ordered the Persian ships to be linked together in order to catch Razin's entire army, like in a net. Taking advantage of this, the Cossacks began to shoot at the flagship with all their guns, blew it up, and when it pulled the neighboring ships to the bottom and panic arose among the Persians, they began to sink other ships one after another. As a result, only three ships remained from the Persian fleet.
Stenka Razin and the Persian princess
In the battle at Pig Lake, the Cossacks captured the son of Mamed Khan, the Persian prince Shabalda. According to legend, his sister was also captured, with whom Razin was passionately in love, who allegedly even gave birth to a son to the Don ataman and whom Razin sacrificed to Mother Volga. However, the existence of the Persian princess in reality there is no documentary evidence. In particular, the petition is known, which Shabalda addressed, asking to be released, but at the same time the prince did not say a word about his sister.
execution
On the eve of the Peasant War, Razin seized de facto power in the Don, having made an enemy for himself in the person of his own godfather, Ataman Yakovlev. After the siege of Simbirsk, where Razin was defeated and seriously wounded, the thrifty Cossacks, led by Yakovlev, were able to arrest him, and then his younger brother Frol. In June, a detachment of 76 Cossacks delivered the Razins to Moscow. On the way to the capital, they were joined by a convoy of a hundred archers. The brothers were dressed in rags.
Stepan was tied to a pillory mounted on a cart, Frol was chained so that he ran alongside. The year has been dry. In the midst of the heat, the prisoners were solemnly paraded through the streets of the city. Then they brutally tortured and quartered.
After the death of Razin, legends began to form about him. Either he throws twenty pounds of stones from a plow, or he defends Rus' together with Ilya Muromets, or he voluntarily goes to prison to release the prisoners. "He will lie down for a little while, rest, get up ... Give, he will say, coal, write a boat on the wall with that coal, put convicts in that boat, splash water: the river will overflow from the island to the Volga itself; Stenka with the good fellows will burst out songs - yes to the Volga !.. Well, remember your name!"
Stenka Razin was far from always and not everyone considered a folk hero. Many, on the contrary, considered and still consider him a robber, a murderer. And can a person who tried to destroy the Russian state be considered a “people's hero”?
... The leader of the peasant and Cossack uprising, the Don Cossack Stepan Razin, in 1670 declared himself an enemy of all state power. Voivods, clerks, representatives of the Church in the cities they captured were killed, stationery was burned, and their own rule was established. Razin took Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Saratov and Samara. During the siege of Simbirsk, the troops of the legitimate Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich inflicted a severe defeat on the rebels, the leader himself was wounded and taken to the Don. There he was captured by the Cossacks themselves and handed over to the tsarist governors. From there he was escorted to Moscow and on June 6, 1671, quartered on the scaffold on Bolotnaya Square (the same square that today has gained all-Russian notoriety because of the rallies of the liberal opposition, apparently the heirs of the devastating case for the state of Stenka Razin).
In the spring of 1669, in the battle near Pig Island in the Caspian Sea, Stepan Razin captured the daughter of the commander of the Persian fleet, Mammad Khan, and her brother, before that he fraudulently lured the khan into negotiations and cut off his head himself. After that, according to some reports, the Razintsy captured Astrabad, slaughtered all the men, plundered the city, took away more than eight hundred women with them, and after a three-week orgy they all destroyed them.
Let's throw away the romantic veil: a bandit took a twelve-year-old princess, killed her relatives, raped her and threw her into the Volga in front of her little brother. For any normal person, it is clear that the murder of a girl, almost a child, whom the “hero” had previously dishonored and forcibly taken as his mistress, is a heinous, base crime.
The most famous song about Razin and the princess, which is mistakenly considered “folk”, known by the first line as “Because of the island to the rod”, was written by the poet D.N. Sadovnikov in 1883. The author's title of the song reveals its terrible pagan meaning: "Victim to the Volga".
Here they are - the human sacrifices of the pagans!!!
No, it is no coincidence that the pagan Satanists glorify the murderer and robber, the pagan Stenka Razin!
Most of the "folk" songs were composed during the revolution and the civil war. It was then that such cruel and merciless, bloody "heroes" were needed in order to reproduce all these atrocities on a more terrible scale. In another hundred years, this will happen again in Ukraine and Odessa.
And in our time, the so-called. Rodnovers, choking with delight, sing the ferocity of the robbers and their leader, the cruel executions of innocent people, the burned bell towers from which Orthodox priests were thrown.
so-called. Rodnovry proclaim Stenka Razin their hero and, almost openly, call to follow his example.
It is necessary not to sing, but to denounce and root out these poisonous sprouts of hatred, cruelty and neglect of human life, because this is incompatible with elementary humanity.
Men, trustingly listening,
They believed what Stepan said ...
Leaving home, family and land,
We went to the robbers, where their chieftain was ...
Reveling in blood and power,
Despising faith and people,
He promised freedom and happiness,
But he held them for slaves and for "animals".
How many souls slyly seduced
and tortured - not to remember and not to count?!
How many of them ruthlessly executed!
He did not spare those in whom - faith, honor ...
He was a robber, he remained a robber,
longed for the power and might of kings,
and who would not seem like a hero,
he was and is - a murderer, a villain.
Materials of the article by Lyudmila Belkina were used
http://blagovestsamara.rf/-public_page_19199
Excerpt from the manuscript of the new book by Pyotr Romanov "Russian rebellion"
For its endless riots, the 17th century entered Russian history under the name of the "rebellious" century. And in the center of this time is the figure of Stepan Razin. By the way, a curious phenomenon: how many centuries have passed, and the romantic halo still surrounds this ruthless robber.
We find an explanation from Nikolai Kostomarov: “Hatred of the boyars, governors, clerks and the rich, who brought benefits to the treasury and to themselves, led to the fact that the inhabitants stopped looking at the robbers as enemies of their country, if only the robbers robbed the noble and rich, but they did not touch the poor and ordinary people; the robber began to appear as a model of prowess, youth, even the patron and avenger of the suffering and oppressed.
I believe that the secret of Stepan Razin's unfading popularity lies precisely in the fact that our leaders are still not distinguished by kindness, honesty, or mercy. How can a "noble robber" not shine against such a background? However, there is no need for illusions, Razin's "Robinhoodism" is just a myth, it's just that human memory stubbornly rejects sober assessments, like the one that the same Kostomarov gave our "hero": "He was a geek of an unsuccessful society."
As many researchers have noted, Razin determined the Russian folk character, perhaps no less than the time of the Horde yoke. He, in their opinion, is a true hero of the people, and all the revolutionary events of 1917-20 are filled with the spirit of Razin. There are even those who believe that the heroes of these events are just pale shadows of the grandiose figure of Stenka.
Kostomarov writes about Razin: “He was a man of unusually strong build, enterprising nature, gigantic will, impetuous activity. drunkenness and revelry, then ready to endure all hardships with inhuman patience ... There was something charming in his speeches; wild courage was reflected in the rough features of his face, correct and slightly pockmarked; there was something commanding in his eyes; the crowd felt the presence in him some supernatural force, against which it was impossible to resist, and called him a sorcerer. There really was some terrible, mysterious darkness in his soul. Cruel and bloodthirsty, he seemed to have no heart either for others, or even for himself He was amused by the sufferings of others, he despised his own. There was no compassion for him. Honor and generosity were unfamiliar to him."
According to the most common version, the execution of Razin's elder brother, Ivan, served as the fuse of the Razin uprising. Ataman Ivan Razin in 1665 commanded the Cossack regiments on the Polish border in the Russian army of Prince Dolgoruky. In the fall, the Cossacks decided to return to the Don, believing that, by order of the Circle, other troops would be sent to replace them. Dolgorukov opposed this decision, returned the Cossacks by force, and ordered the ataman to be hanged.
In my opinion, the version looks reliable, because it fits perfectly into the historical context of that transitional period of relations between Moscow and the Cossacks. The prince was already convinced that the Cossacks were obliged to obey him unquestioningly, and Ivan Razin still believed that the help of the Cossacks of the Russian army was a voluntary matter: if we wanted, we were at war, tired, we went home.
And yet, putting Stenka Razin's personal revenge at the forefront would mean seriously simplifying the causes of the uprising. Of course, the Razin brothers - Ivan, and Stepan (to a lesser extent - the younger Frol) had considerable authority on the Don, so it can be assumed that Ivan's execution outraged not only his relatives, but all the Cossacks.
Another thing is more important: the unbearable situation in which a simple Russian man found himself at that time. As Kostomarov rightly writes, "the entire half of the 17th century was the preparation for the era of Stenka Razin." If the political elite with the enthronement of Mikhail Romanov somehow calmed down, then the lower classes, awakened by the Time of Troubles, were still seething. The peasants, not wanting to remain serfs, went on the run and grouped themselves into gangs of robbers, the Cossacks, who felt at ease under the False Dmitrys, wanted the "continuation of the banquet", the schismatics demanded their own, etc. As they said then: the whole Russian world swayed.
Finally, despite the robber character of Razin himself and all his associates, this rebellion also has a very definite ideological background, which distinguishes it from the numerous other rebellions of that era. It is difficult to say exactly when this thought clearly took shape in Stenka Razin’s head, but he seems to have sincerely hoped to establish a more just, as he believed, Cossack military-democratic system on the whole Russian land instead of autocracy. Later, approximately the same ideas arose in the head of Emelyan Pugachev. That is, a simple robbery, or as they said then, "obtaining zipuns", gradually began to acquire the features of a political rebellion.
Given the psychology of the lower classes, who blindly revered the sovereigns, Razin did not swear aloud at the royal power, on the contrary, at every opportunity, he emphasized that he was saving the tsar from his vile servants, the boyars. However, at the same time, he spread a rumor that Tsarevich Alexei and the deposed Patriarch Nikon were allegedly hiding in his wagon train. The role of Tsarevich Alexei, who had already died by that time, was played by some Circassian prince captured by Razin.
The outdated streltsy army could not cope with the Cossacks, and the troops of the foreign system, which fought successfully against the Cossacks, were still few in power. Therefore, in the fight against Razin, Moscow had to place the main stake on the “domestic”, that is, rich Cossacks, faithful to it. And the authorities were not mistaken.
In his so-called "seductive" letters, which Razin distributed among the people, the task of overthrowing the sovereign was never proclaimed. He only declared himself a consistent fighter against the royal officials and clergy, whom the Cossack accused of betraying the king. Razin explained to the captured archers: "You are fighting for traitors, and we are fighting for the sovereign." That is, the slogan of the rebels was the call "For the tsar against the boyars!". Of course, this was only a tactical ploy: it was impossible to combine Razin's passion for boundless will with submission to the tsar.
It is clear that this Cossack order came into deep conflict not only with the secular, but also with the spiritual authorities. Razin was credited with, say, such speeches: “What is the church for?
***
It is worth noting, however, that not all Cossacks then supported Razin. Like the veche, the Cossack Circle was sometimes divided in half and vigorously found out who was right. At best, with fists, and at worst, by force of arms. So in 1670, when the Cossacks loyal to Moscow gathered their Circle in Cherkassk, Razin and his comrades suddenly appeared there, declared the "main speaker" a Moscow spy, killed him, and threw his body into the Don. The Cossacks loyal to Moscow barely escaped then, hiding in the cathedral.
Nevertheless, it was precisely the split among the Cossacks that ensured Moscow, in the end, victory. The outdated streltsy army could not cope with the Cossacks, and the troops of the foreign system, which fought successfully against the Cossacks, were still few in power. Therefore, in the fight against Razin, Moscow had to place the main stake on the “domestic”, that is, rich Cossacks, faithful to it. And the authorities were not mistaken.
The details of the capture of Razin in April 1671 are unknown, but Razin was captured not by the tsarist troops, but by the Cossacks who went over to the side of Moscow. Almost all the rebels captured with Razin were immediately hanged, and the most formidable chieftain, along with his brother Frol, was sent to the capital. On the way to Moscow, already in shackles, Frolka, who was weaker in character, began to blame his brother for dragging everyone into trouble, to which Stepan, judging by the recollections of eyewitnesses that accompanied the prisoners, confidently replied: “There is no trouble! the gentlemen will come out to see us."
Indeed, the brothers were met, but only not in order to greet. Already a few miles before Moscow, Razin was taken off his rich dress and dressed in rags. A large cart with a gallows was brought from the capital. Razin was chained to her by the neck. Frolka was chained to a cart, and so he ran the rest of the way to Moscow.
Here, after terrible torture, during which Stenka did not utter a sound, he was executed on June 6, 1670.
The younger brother could not stand the torture, repented and promised to serve the sovereign. “What a woman you are!” Said the already half-dead brother. After painful tortures, Stepan withstood the quartering just as steadfastly. Frol, waiting for his turn, sobbed again, swore allegiance to the sovereign and begged for mercy. "Be quiet, dog!" the ataman responded. And those were his last words.
What happened to Frol next is not exactly known. According to some testimonies, he first delayed his punishment, lying that he knew where the rich treasure was buried, and then he, repentant, was sentenced to life imprisonment.
***
The train from the Razin uprising in the chronicles and documents of that time can be traced back to 1672. Already without their leader, part of the Cossacks, stubbornly resisting, dealt painful blows to the authorities. The circle, assembled by Razin's supporters, blamed Metropolitan Joseph and the governor Prince Lvov for his death. Both were captured by the Cossacks. The Metropolitan was stripped of the sacred robes in which he left the church, tortured and thrown from the bell tower. After being tortured, Prince Lvov was also killed.
The last point in Razin's rebellion can be considered the summer of 1672, when troops loyal to the sovereign took Astrakhan and inflicted a trial and reprisal on the last Razin residents. However, the massacre of the last rebels did not occur immediately. Fedka Sheludyak, who became the head of the Razintsy after the death of Stepan, surrendered to the Moscow troops that surrounded Astrakhan, on certain conditions. And the boyars fulfilled their obligations for some time: no one was executed, only the loot was taken away from everyone. Razintsy lived for some time in freedom, however, later Prince Yakov Odoevsky specially arrived from Moscow to Astrakhan for investigation and reprisals. The former leaders of the Razintsy were captured and hanged. With ordinary troublemakers, since they no longer posed a serious threat, they acted more mercifully, they were simply sent to serve in different places.
I do not think that Razin himself at least once thought about what a deep mark he would leave in Russian history, a trail of contradictory, but, of course, very bright. It is enough to cite the reflections, already after the October Revolution, of Fyodor Chaliapin: “Of course, I am far from thinking of seeing in Stepan Timofeevich Razin a symbolic image of Russia. But it is also true that thinking about the character of a Russian person, about the fate of Russia and not remembering Razin - it’s simply impossible ... Razin’s element sometimes finds on a Russian person, and then he does wonderful things! So it’s reliable for me that it often seems to me that we all - red, and white, and green, and blue - are in one of these They took Stenka's obsessions and played robbers, and how they played - to self-forgetfulness! They lifted the beautiful princess over the side of the great Russian ship, swung in a Razin way and threw it into the waves ... But not the Persian princess this time, but our own mother - Russia " .
The dashing free Cossack, popularly known as Stenka Razin, appeared on the Don not by chance. The oppression of serfdom became more and more difficult, the dependence of the peasants became more and more fixed. The governors and the bureaucracy were rotten, bribery and red tape flourished in Rus', and there was no fair trial. The flight of the peasants acquired colossal proportions, even in the petitions of that time there were often threats to "scatter apart." In such an environment, the emergence of a strong leader and protector was a regularity. The rebellion was not caused by Razin, it was rather Stepan Timofeevich who became the product of popular anger.
The amazing, full of adventures life of a freedom-loving, extraordinary person, a successful ataman passed on the battlefield. The personality of Stepan Timofeevich, covered with glory, which any crowned autocrat can envy, is attractive to the Russian people, especially with his open and desperate character. Stepan Razin in folk tales personifies the leader of the peasants and valiant Cossacks, the defender and liberator.
The future formidable chieftain was born in the village of Zimoveyskaya on the Don. A lot is connected with this mysterious place for the Russian people. A little later, Emelyan Pugachev will also be born, having passed through the territory of our country on a no less bloody road than the accursed Stenka Razin. What kind of anomaly in these places is not known. However, the fact remains that it was here that the two most desperate rebels were born, so dearly loved and respected in Rus'.
The Don Cossacks by the middle of the sixteenth century consisted of two specific layers: indigenous people and fugitive or newcomers. The "bad" who did not have a permanent place of residence often broke into campaigns in order to rob passing ships with goods and nearby territories. Such thieves' actions were called by the Cossacks campaigns "for zipuns", and although the indigenous wealthy people did not publicly approve of such raids, they still secretly financed them for a certain share in the booty. One of these campaigns began the people's "storm", whose name is Stepan Timofeevich Razin.
A small detachment of Cossacks, according to some sources, its number was about 2 thousand people, headed down the Volga for robbery. At the head of the detachment was a young and successful ataman Stepan Timofeevich. The campaign quickly went beyond the usual raid, characteristic of the Don Cossacks. The government made at first rather sluggish attempts to pacify the Cossacks, and time was lost. Already in May 1667, Cossack detachments defeated the archers and plundered the caravan of Shorin's ships, which accompanied the ship with the exiles. The captives were set free and willingly joined the Cossacks. Razin invaded Yaik, then went to the Persian shores, where he captured the Persian princess known from folk songs. Whether Stepan Timofeevich threw a Persian woman into the water or not has not yet been unambiguously established, but one thing is known that the daughter of Mamed Khan of Astara never returned from the captivity of the Cossacks.
The return to Astrakhan was triumphant for Stenka Razin. The governors were given a confession in exchange for passage to the Volga. During his stay in the city, the ataman rode plows and in every possible way emphasized his independence and rebelliousness. Despite the promise to give the authorities all the booty and prisoners, the Cossacks did not give them absolutely nothing, and left for Tsaritsino.
In the city, an attempt to impose bans on visiting taverns by the Cossacks was severely punished by Razin. In fact, Stepan Timofeevich refused to obey the tsarist administration and captured the city. The ataman responded to all threats with abuse and reciprocal promises of reprisals. Razin emphasized in every possible way his rejection of the existing regime of oppression, preached equality, severely punished the objectionable, but did not directly dishonor the king. The desperate ataman was well aware that the tsar in the minds of the population could easily be opposed to the hated governors and greedy boyars, which he actively used in his speeches and deeds. The defeated governor and military commanders Stepan Timofeevich publicly flogged with rods, which also raised his authority in the eyes of his subordinates.
Each city occupied by Razin passed to the Cossack administration and adopted their way of life. Many joined the valiant and riotous army. Chiefs, gentlemen, boyars objectionable to the local population were mercilessly exterminated, and daughters from noble and noble families, at best, were married off to ordinary peasants or Cossacks. It is interesting that Stepan Timofeevich completely refused to recognize the wedding ceremony and organized the marriage ceremonies himself. The sacrament consisted in crazy dancing for a short time, after which the couple were declared legal spouses.
After Tsaritsyn, Razin occupied Samara, Saratov and a number of other cities. Moving on the crest of the peasant war, which originated as early as 1670, the forces of the Cossacks kept arriving and looked more and more like a rebel army. In order to attract the people, Razin ordered to sheathe one of his ships with red cloth and seat an unknown captive as Tsarevich Alexei, and the second boat was covered with black blankets and rumors were spread about the presence of Patriarch Nikon on it. Thus, Stepan Timofeevich actively tried to discredit the image of the sovereign, without expressing direct intentions to overthrow the autocracy. Razin pointed out that he was fighting for the tsar, but against the thieving governors, boyars and other nobility.
However, in the campaign, the chieftain constantly drank, rowdy and indulged in various bloody entertainments. Gradually, he lost his original image of a protector and transformed into a demoniac, ruthless killer, led by the opinion of the crowd, magnifying his achievements and victories. The measures applied by Razin's entourage to the sovereign's henchmen were very cruel. The unfortunate were hung, wheeled, drowned and tormented in various sophisticated ways. The punishments were in the nature of intimidation. Detachments of the Cossacks were divided and occupied more and more new cities, the unrest swept not only the Volga region and the Central part of Rus', but even reached the territories of the White Sea.
In 1670, Razin's army suffered its first setback in the siege of Simbirsk, and already in early October it was defeated by the tsarist army of 60,000 soldiers under the command of Baryatinsky. Stepan Trofimovich was seriously wounded and, leaving the bulk of his detachment, fled to his native Don. Subsequently, Razin was betrayed by the Cossacks along with his brother Frol.
They tortured the people's ataman in the royal dungeons, but his courage commanded respect even from the executioners. The hardy Cossack did not utter a word, he did not ask for mercy and did not beg for indulgence. A proud and surprisingly strong man, even in the face of imminent death, he retained his dignity. The execution was terrible and painful. Stepan Trofimovich was cut off his hand, and then his leg, and only then the pitied executioner cut off the chieftain's head. According to the verdict, Razin was to be quartered, but death came faster. The indignation of the chieftain was caused by the behavior of brother Frol, who, frightened by the bloody spectacle, uttered words of repentance. According to eyewitnesses, only then Razin cursed him strongly.
The amazing desperate life of the rebel ended on the block, which is typical for the leaders of popular uprisings in Russia. The bloodthirsty stray robber remained in the people's memory as a hero-liberator. Is it so everyone decides for himself. Stenka Razin is one of those great and mysterious personalities judged only by history.
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The leader of the Cossacks Stepan Timofeevich Razin, also known as Stenka Razin, is one of the cult figures of Russian history, about which a lot has been heard even abroad.
The image of Razin was overgrown with legends during his lifetime, and historians still cannot figure out where is the truth and where is fiction.
In Soviet historiography, Razin appeared as the leader of the peasant war, a fighter for social justice against the oppression of those in power. At that time, the name of Razin was widely used when naming streets and squares, and monuments to the rebel were erected on a par with other heroes of the revolutionary struggle.
At the same time, historians of the Soviet era tried not to focus on the robberies, violence and murders perpetrated by the ataman, since this did not fit into the noble image of the national hero.
Little is known about the young years of Stepan Razin. He was the son of a fugitive Voronezh peasant Timofey Razi, who took refuge on the Don.
Such as Timothy, the newly adopted Cossacks, who did not have their own property, were considered "bare". The only reliable source of income was campaigns on the Volga, where bands of Cossacks robbed merchant caravans. A similar, frankly criminal, trade was also encouraged by the more affluent Cossacks, who supplied the “golytba” with everything they needed, and in return received their share of the booty.
The authorities turned a blind eye to such things as a necessary evil, sending troops on punitive expeditions only in those cases when the Cossacks completely lost their measure.
Timothy Razya succeeded in such campaigns - he acquired not only property, but also a wife - a captured Turkish woman. The Eastern woman was no stranger to violence, and she resigned herself to her fate, giving birth to her husband three sons: Ivan, Stepan and Frol. However, perhaps the Turkish mother is also just a legend.
Lacquer miniature "Stepan Razin" on the lid of a Palekh box, the work of the artist D. Turin, 1934. Photo: RIA Novosti
Brother for brother
What is known for sure is that Stepan Timofeevich Razin, who was born around 1630, took part in military campaigns from a young age and by the age of 25 had become an influential figure among the Cossacks, just like his elder brother Ivan.
In 1661 Stepan Razin, together with Fedor Budan and several Don and Zaporozhye Cossacks negotiated with representatives of the Kalmyks about peace and joint actions against the Nogais and Crimean Tatars.
In 1663, at the head of a detachment of Don Cossacks, together with the Cossacks and Kalmyks, he went on a campaign against the Crimean Tatars near Perekop.
Stepan and Ivan Razin were in good standing with the Moscow authorities until the events that took place in 1665 during the war with the Commonwealth.
Painting "Stenka Razin", 1926. Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927). Photo: RIA Novosti
Cossacks are free people, and at the height of the armed conflict, ataman Ivan Razin, who did not find a common language with the Moscow governor, decided to take the Cossacks to the Don.
Voivode Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov, not distinguished by great abilities as a diplomat, he became angry, ordered to catch up with the departed. When the Cossacks were overtaken by Dolgorukov, he ordered the immediate execution of Ivan Razin.
Stepan was shocked by the death of his brother. As a man accustomed to going on campaigns, he treated death philosophically, but one thing is death in battle, and quite another is extrajudicial reprisal at the behest of a nobleman-tyrant.
The thought of revenge was firmly planted in Razin's head, but he did not immediately move on to putting it into practice.
Forward "for the zipuns"!
Two years later, Stepan Razin became the leader of a large “zipun campaign” organized by him to the lower Volga. Under his leadership, he managed to gather a whole army of 2000 people.
After the death of his brother, the ataman was not going to be ashamed. They robbed everyone in a row, in fact paralyzing the most important trade routes for Moscow. The Cossacks dealt with the initial people and clerks and received the ship's yaryzhny people.
Such behavior was bold, but still not out of the ordinary. But when the Razintsy defeated a detachment of archers, and then captured the Yaitsky town, it already began to look like an outright rebellion. After wintering on Yaik, Razin led his people to the Caspian Sea. Ataman was interested in rich booty, and he went to the possessions of the Persian Shah.
The Shah quickly realized that such "guests" promised ruin, and sent troops to meet them. The battle near the Persian city of Rasht ended in a draw, and the parties began negotiations. The Shah's representative, fearing that the Cossacks were acting at the behest of the Russian Tsar, was ready to let them go to all four sides with booty, so long as they got out of Persian territory as soon as possible.
But in the midst of negotiations, the Russian ambassador unexpectedly appeared with a royal letter, which said that the Cossacks were thieves and troublemakers, and it was proposed that they “be killed without mercy by death.”
Representatives of the Cossacks were immediately put in chains, and one was hunted down by dogs. Ataman Razin, convinced that the Persian authorities were no better than the Russians in terms of extrajudicial reprisals, attacked and captured the city of Farabat. Fortified in its vicinity, the Razintsy spent the winter there.
How ataman Razin arranged the "Persian Tsushima"
In the spring of 1669, Razin's detachment terrified merchants and wealthy people on the Caspian coast of present-day Turkmenistan, and by the summer the Cossack robbers settled on Pig Island, not far from modern Baku.
In June 1669, the Persian army approached the Pig Island on 50-70 ships with a total number of 4 to 7 thousand people, led by the commander Mammad Khan. The Persians intended to put an end to the robbers.
Razin's detachment was inferior both in numbers and in the number and equipment of ships. Nevertheless, out of pride, the Cossacks decided not to run, but to take the fight, moreover, on the water.
Stepan Razin. 1918 Artist Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin. Photo: Public Domain
This idea seemed desperate and hopeless, and Mamed Khan, anticipating a triumph, gave the order to connect his ships with iron chains, taking the Razins in a dead ring so that no one could hide.
Stepan Timofeevich Razin, however, was an experienced commander and used the enemy's mistakes instantly. The Cossacks concentrated all their fire on the flagship of the Persians, which caught fire and sank to the bottom. Connected by chains with neighboring ships, he began to drag them along with him. Panic began among the Persians, and the Razintsy began to smash the enemy ships one by one.
The case ended in complete disaster. Only three Persian ships managed to escape, most of the troops died. Was captured by Razin son of Mammad Khan, Persian prince Shabalda. According to legend, his sister was captured along with him, who became the ataman's concubine, and then thrown into the "oncoming wave".
In fact, everything is not easy with the princess. Although some foreign diplomats who described the adventures of Razin mentioned its existence, there is no reliable evidence. But the prince was and wrote tearful petitions with a request to let him go home. But with all the freedom of morals in the Cossack freemen, it is unlikely that Ataman Razin made his concubine a Persian prince, and not a princess.
Despite the crushing victory, it was clear that the Razintsy would not have enough strength to continue to resist the Persians. They moved to Astrakhan, but government troops were already waiting for them there.
The execution of Stepan Razin. Hood. S. Kirillov. Photo: Public Domain
War with the regime
After negotiations, the local governor, Prince Prozorovsky, received the ataman with honor and let him go to the Don. The authorities were ready to turn a blind eye to Razin's previous sins, if only he would calm down.
Stepan Timofeevich Razin, however, was not going to calm down. On the contrary, he felt the strength, confidence, support of the poor, who considered him a hero, and considered that the time had come for real revenge.
In the spring of 1670, he again went to the Volga, now with a frank goal - to hang the governor and clerks, rob and burn the rich. Razin sent out "charming" (seductive) letters, urging people to join his campaign. The ataman had a political platform - he declared that he was not an enemy Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, but opposes, as they would say now, "the party of crooks and thieves."
It was also reported that the rebels allegedly joined Patriarch Nikon(actually in exile) and Tsarevich Alexei Alekseevich(Dead by then).
In a few months, Razin's campaign turned into a full-scale war. His army took Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Samara, a number of smaller cities and towns.
In all the cities and fortresses occupied by the Razintsy, a Cossack device was introduced, representatives of the central government were killed, stationery was destroyed.
All this, of course, was accompanied by wholesale robberies and extrajudicial reprisals, which were no better than the one that Prince Dolgorukov committed against Razin's brother.
Features of Cossack solidarity
In Moscow, they felt that the matter smelled of being fried, of a new turmoil. All of Europe was already talking about Stepan Razin, foreign diplomats reported that the Russian tsar did not control his territory. That and look, you could expect a foreign invasion.
By order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, a 60,000-strong army was sent against Razin under the command of governor Yuri Baryatinsky. On October 3, 1670, in the battle near Simbirsk, Stepan Razin's army was defeated, and he himself was wounded. Faithful people helped the chieftain to return to the Don.
And here something happened that has been repeatedly repeated in history and that speaks very well of the so-called "Cossack solidarity." The homely Cossacks, who had until then helped Razin and had their share of the booty, fearing punitive measures from the tsar, on April 13, 1671, captured the last refuge of the ataman and handed him over to the authorities.
Ataman Razin and his brother Frol taken to Moscow, where they were severely tortured. The execution of the rebel was given great state importance - it was supposed to demonstrate that the Russian tsar was able to restore order in his possessions.
Archers avenged Razin
The uprising itself was finally crushed at the end of 1671.
The authorities, of course, would like there to be no reminder of Stenka Razin, but the events with his participation turned out to be painfully large-scale. Ataman went into folk legend, where he was written off atrocities, promiscuity with women, robberies and other criminal acts, leaving only the image of the people's avenger, the enemy of the villains in power, the defender of the poor and oppressed.
In the end, the ruling tsarist regime reconciled itself. It got to the point that the first domestic feature film "Ponizovaya Freemen" was dedicated specifically to Stenka Razin. True, not his hunt for caravans and not the murders of the royal servants, but all the same epochal throw of the princess into the river.
And what about the voivode Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov, with whose reckless order the transformation of Stepan Razin into an “enemy of the regime” began?
The prince happily survived the storm arranged by Stenka, but, apparently, it was not destined for him to die a natural death. In May 1682, the elderly nobleman, who turned 80 years old, was killed by archers who rebelled in Moscow along with his son.
