Ural legends about Pugachev. Vladimir Korolenko "Pugachev's legend in the Urals"

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V. G. Korolenko

Pugachev's legend in the Urals

V. G. Korolenko. Collected works. V. 4 Library "Spark" M., "Pravda", 1953 OCR Bychkov MN One extract from the investigation of the Orenburg secret commission about Emelyan Pugachev begins like this: "The place where this monster was born is the Cossack Little Russian Zimoveyskaya village; born and raised, according to his apparent atrocity, so to speak, with hellish milk from the Cossack of that village, Ivan Mikhailov Pugachev, wife Anna Mikhailova. All modern official descriptions of Pugachev were compiled in the same clerical-cursing style and depict before us not a real person, but some kind of incredible monster, brought up precisely by the "hellish milk" and almost literally stinking with flame. This tone was established for a long time in official correspondence. It is known how at that time they treated all kinds of titles, in which even scraping a slip was considered a crime. Pugachev also had his own official title: "The well-known state thief, monster, villain and impostor Emelka Pugachev." Eloquent people, who had the gift of words and were good at writing, managed to decorate this title with various, even more expressive superstructures and additions. But to say less than that [was] indecent, and perhaps even unreliable and dangerous. Literature did not lag behind the official tone. The “educated” society of that time, which consisted of nobles and officials, felt, of course, that the entire force of the popular movement was directed precisely against it, and it is understandable in what form the person personifying the terrible danger appeared to him. "You vile, impudent man," Sumarokov exclaimed in pietic zeal at the news of Pugachev's capture, "Suddenly whom nature cast down into a blessed age To the misfortune of many people: Forgetting both the truth and yourself, And only loving satan, He thought about God without fear ... "This barbarian," says the same poet in another poem: ... spared neither age nor sex, The dog is so mad that he meets, he gnaws, Like so on a meadow from a blaty valley The dragon crawls hissingly. For this, of course, "there is no execution worthy of him in the world," "it is not enough to burn him," etc. The feelings of contemporaries, of course, are easily explained. Unfortunately for subsequent history, the initial investigation about Pugachev fell into the hands of an insignificant and completely incompetent man, Pavel Potemkin, who, apparently, made every effort to ensure that the original appearance of the monster brought up by the "hellish milk" was somehow not distorted by real features. to him great Catherine dungeons and torture, it is clear that all the material of the investigation was formed in this biased direction: a popular, one-color image was reinforced by forced testimony, and the real appearance of a living person was buried under the Suzdal daub of torture protocols. The mediocrity of this "second cousin" of the all-powerful temporary worker was so great that even purely factual details major episodes previous life of Pugachev (for example, his trip to the Terek, where, apparently, he also tried to stir up trouble) became known from later random finds in provincial archives (One of his contemporaries, in a letter to Pavel Potemkin himself, pointed out that even after escaping from Kazan prison, the appearance of Pugachev on Yaik, a significant part of the adventures of the impostor remains untraceable.). Pavel Potemkin tried only to thicken the "hellish milk" as much as possible and preserve the "satanic appearance". It must be said that the task was carried out with great success. Immediately after the mutiny was pacified, the military dictator Panin, invested with unlimited power, ordered that one gallows, one wheel and one verb for hanging "by the rib" (!) Not only rebels, but also everyone "who will to recognize and pronounce this villain, the impostor Emelka Pugachev, as the real one, as he was called (i.e., Peter III). And who does not "delay and not will present to the authorities such speakers, those villages, all without exception (!) Age-old men ... will be executed by sent teams with the most painful deaths, and their wives and children will be sent to the hardest work. "It is quite clear what a thunderstorm hung after that over all sorts of stories about Pugachev when gallows, wheels and verbs with hooks stood along the roads, teams walked around the villages, and scammers snooped around among the people. Everything that was not marked with an officially accepted tone, everything even just neutral stories became dangerous. divided: part went deep into the memory of the people, away from the authorities and masters, gradually clothed in a haze of superstition and ignorance, the other, recognized and, so to speak, official, took shape in a gloomy, clumsy and also monotonous legend. mysterious person, the original springs of the movement and many of its purely factual details have disappeared, perhaps forever, in the fog of the past. "Still, the beginning of this invention," Ekaterina wrote to Panin, "remains closed." It remains unclear to this day. The actual history of the rebellion from the outside is worked out in great detail, but its main character remains a mystery. The initial fear of "society" left its mark both on subsequent views and on history ... As a truly brilliant artist, Pushkin managed to renounce the pattern of his time so much that in his novel Pugachev, although passing in the background, is completely alive man. Sending his story of the Pugachev rebellion to Denis Davydov, the poet wrote, among other things: Here is my Pugach. At first glance, He is visible: a rogue, a straight Cossack. In your forward detachment, the constable would have been dashing. There is a huge distance between this image and not only the Sumarokovsky monster who loved Satan, but even Pugachev of later images (for example, in Danilevsky's "Black Year"). Pushkin's roguish and cunning Cossack, a bit of a robber in the song style (remember his conversation with Grinev about the eagle and the raven) - not devoid of movements of gratitude and even generosity - a real living face, full of life and artistic truth. However, a great difficulty arises every time when this "dashing officer" has to be brought to the forefront of a huge historical movement. Already Pogodin at one time turned to Pushkin with a number of questions that, in his opinion, were not resolved by the History of the Pugachev Rebellion. Many of these questions, despite the very valuable subsequent works of historians, are still waiting for their solution even today. And the main one is enigmatic personality, which stood at the center of the movement and gave it its name. Historians are hindered by a pile of consciously and unconsciously falsified investigative material. After Pushkin, our fiction even took a step back in understanding this major and, in any case, interesting historical figure. From the "dashing sergeant" and the roguish Cossack, we moved in the direction of the "hellish milk" and the popular villain. And it can be said without exaggeration that in our written and printed history, in the very center not very remote from us and in the highest degree interesting period there is some kind of sphinx, a man without a face. The same cannot be said about Pugachev of folk legends, which have almost died out in the rest of Russia, but are extremely vividly preserved in the Urals, at least in the older Cossack generation. Here, neither strict decrees, nor Panin's verbs and hooks had time to erase from the people's memory the image of the "runaway" tsar, which remained in her inviolable, including itself, true, rather fantastic, the form in which this "king" appeared for the first time from the mysterious steppe distance among the ordinary Cossacks, crushed, crushed, insulted and deeply humiliated by the elders. Trying to collect ancient legends that have not yet completely died out, to bring them together and, perhaps, to find among this fantastic heap the living features that stirred up the first wave of a major popular movement on Yaik, was one of the goals of my trip to the Urals in 1900. I was warned that in view of the isolation of the Cossacks and their distrust of any “out-of-town”, especially those who come from Russia, this task would be difficult to accomplish. And, indeed, once I had to stumble upon a rather comical failure. From one of the inhabitants of the Krugloozernaya village (Svistun), an old and respected Cossack Phil. Sidorovich Kovalev, I learned that in Uralsk, in kurens, near the church, there lives the grandson of Nikifor Petrovich Kuznetsov (Ustinya Petrovna's natural nephew), Natoriy (Enatoriy) Felisatovich Kuznetsov, a literate and inquisitive person who allegedly made some notes from the words of his grandfather, lover and keeper of the legends of the Kuznetsov family. The stories of this grandfather, Nikifor Kuznetsov, were already used by the famous Ural writer Yosaf Ign. Zheleznov, but I was still curious to see his grandson, the living successor of this tradition. I actually found him behind the cathedral, in the kurens, in an old, recently burnt house. However, when I explained to him the purpose of my visit and even referred to F.S. Kovalev's instructions, Natoriy Kuznetsov only frowned. “I can't tell you anything. Foster

Soon, on the thirteenth of September, Lieutenant Ishtiryakov reported to the mayor that the well, the petty-bourgeois widow Natalya Chuvakova, who was being held in custody by the balakhon magistrate in prison ... was in a grave illness, which is why it was impossible to send it.

Lukerya Petrova Sorokina, a compassionate balakhon bourgeois woman, took the ill-fated widow against a receipt from the magistrate to her house for treatment, - after which - again a prison and a workhouse ...

On the thirteenth of October, Chuvakova was returned from the order of public charity (in Nizhny Novgorod), with a message that she had worked out the twenty-five kopecks with legalized interest.

That's what the ring cost a forty-year-old dandy-widow.

And the ring itself? Nothing is mentioned about him in the file, but from what we know from many other cases, it is easy to guess that it hardly got to the peasant woman Antonova. One must think that it adorned the finger of some "food", clerk, clerk, or one of their lovers. Moreover, now the ring was already "cleansed" by the tears and suffering of the widow - and in addition, the beepers and clerks were not afraid of its mysterious power, just as doctors are not afraid of infection.

"Each generation treats the previous ones with regret or derision." We both laugh and feel sorry for all this mess, which surrounded the worthless ring with tears and shame of a knowingly innocent person. But ... other generations will come, they will read our deeds - and how much more unnecessary formalism, how much more unnecessary grief and they will open tears under the forms of our own life!

One extract from the investigation of the Orenburg secret commission about Emelyan Pugachev begins like this: “The place where this monster was born is the Cossack Little Russian Zimoveyskaya village; born and raised, according to his apparent atrocity, so to speak, with hellish milk from the Cossack of that village, Ivan Mikhailov Pugachev, wife Anna Mikhailova.

All modern official characteristics of Pugachev were compiled in the same clerical-cursing style and depict before us not a real person, but some kind of incredible monster, brought up precisely by the “hellish milk” and almost literally stinking with flames.

This tone was established for a long time in official correspondence.

It is known how at that time they treated all kinds of titles, in which even scraping a slip was considered a crime. Pugachev also had his own official title: "The famous state thief, monster, villain and impostor Emelka Pugachev." Eloquent people, who had the gift of words and were good at writing, managed to decorate this title with various, even more expressive superstructures and additions. But to say less than that [was] indecent, and perhaps even unreliable and dangerous.

Literature did not lag behind the official tone. The “educated” society of that time, which consisted of nobles and officials, felt, of course, that the entire force of the popular movement was directed precisely against it, and it is understandable in what form the person personifying the terrible danger appeared to him. “You are a vile, impudent person,” Sumarokov exclaimed in pietic zeal at the news of Pugachev’s capture, “

suddenly whom nature

Cast down to a blissful age

To the disaster of many people:

Forgetting the truth and myself

And only loving Satan

I thought about God without fear ... "

“This barbarian,” says the same poet in another poem:

... spared neither age nor gender,

The dog is taco mad, that he meets, he gnaws,

Like so on a meadow from a blatist valley

The dragon hissing crawls.

For this, of course, “there is no execution worthy of him in the world”, “it is not enough to burn him”, etc. The feelings of his contemporaries, of course, are easily explained. Unfortunately for the subsequent story, the initial investigation of Pugachev fell into the hands of an insignificant and completely incompetent person, Pavel Potemkin, who, apparently, made every effort to ensure that the original appearance of the monster brought up by the “hellish milk” was somehow not distorted. real features. And since he had at his disposal the dungeons and torture graciously provided to him by the great Catherine, it is clear that all the material of the investigation developed in this biased direction: the popular, monochrome image was reinforced by forced testimony, and the real appearance of a living person was buried under the Suzdal daub of torture protocols. The mediocrity of this “second cousin” of the all-powerful temporary worker was so great that even the purely factual details of the most important episodes of Pugachev’s previous life (for example, his trip to the Terek, where, apparently, he also tried to stir up confusion) became known from later random finds in provincial archives. Pavel Potemkin tried only to thicken the "hellish milk" as much as possible and preserve the "satanic appearance".

It must be said that the task was carried out with great success. Immediately after the mutiny was pacified, the military dictator Panin, invested with unlimited power, ordered that one gallows, one wheel and one verb for hanging “by the rib” (!) Not only rebels, but also everyone “who will recognize and pronounce this villain, the impostor Emelka Pugachev, as the real one, as he was called (i.e., Peter III). And whoever does not “detain and introduce such speakers to the authorities, all those villages without exception (!) Age men ... will be punished by sent teams with the most painful deaths, and their wives and children will be sent to the hardest work.”

It is quite clear what a thunderstorm hung after that over all sorts of stories about Pugachev, when gallows, wheels and verbs with hooks stood along the roads, teams went through the villages, and scammers snooped among the people. Anything not marked with an official tone, anything even just neutral stories became dangerous. Oral tradition about the events associated with the name of Pugachev was divided: part went into the depths of people's memory, away from the authorities and gentlemen, gradually clothed in a haze of superstition and ignorance, the other, recognized and, so to speak, official, took shape in a gloomy clumsy and also monotonous legend . The real appearance of the mysterious man, the initial springs of movement and many of his purely factual details have disappeared, perhaps forever, in the fog of the past. “Still, the beginning of this invention,” Ekaterina wrote to Panin, “remains closed.” It remains unclear to this day. The actual history of the rebellion from the outside is worked out in great detail, but its main character remains a mystery. The initial fear of "society" left its mark on subsequent views, and on history ...

As a truly brilliant artist, Pushkin managed to renounce the template of his time so much that in his novel Pugachev, although passing in the background, is a completely living person. Sending his story of the Pugachev rebellion to Denis Davydov, the poet wrote, among other things:

Here is my scarecrow. At first glance

He is visible: a rogue, a straight Cossack.

In your forward detachment

The constable would have been dashing.

There is a huge distance between this image and not only the Sumarokovsky monster who loved Satan, but even Pugachev of later images (for example, in Danilevsky's "Black Year"). Pushkin's roguish and dexterous Cossack, a bit of a robber in the song style (remember his conversation with Grinev about the eagle and the raven) - not devoid of movements of gratitude and even generosity - a real living face, full of life and artistic truth. However, a great difficulty arises whenever it is necessary to bring this "dashing sergeant" to the forefront of a huge historical movement. Already Pogodin at one time turned to Pushkin with a number of questions that, in his opinion, were not resolved by the “History of the Pugachev Rebellion”. Many of these questions, despite the very valuable subsequent works of historians, are still waiting for their solution even today. And the main one is a mysterious person who stood at the center of the movement and gave him his name. Historians are hindered by a pile of consciously and unconsciously falsified investigative material. After Pushkin, our fiction even took a step back in understanding this major and, in any case, interesting historical figure. From the "dashing sergeant" and the rogue Cossack, we moved in the direction of the "hellish milk" and the popular villain. And it can be said without exaggeration that in our written and printed history, in the very center of a period not very remote from us and extremely interesting, there is some kind of sphinx, a man without a face.

V. G. Korolenko

Pugachev's legend in the Urals

V. G. Korolenko. Collected works. T. 4 Library "Spark" M., "Pravda", 1953 One extract from the investigation of the Orenburg secret commission about Emelyan Pugachev begins like this: "The place where this monster was born is the Cossack Little Russian Zimoveyskaya village; born and raised, apparently his atrocity, so to speak, with hellish milk from the Cossack of that village, Ivan Mikhailov Pugachev, wife Anna Mikhailova. All modern official descriptions of Pugachev were compiled in the same clerical-cursing style and depict before us not a real person, but some kind of incredible monster, brought up precisely by the "hellish milk" and almost literally stinking with flame. This tone was established for a long time in official correspondence. It is known how at that time they treated all kinds of titles, in which even scraping a slip was considered a crime. Pugachev also had his own official title: "The well-known state thief, monster, villain and impostor Emelka Pugachev." Eloquent people, who had the gift of words and were good at writing, managed to decorate this title with various, even more expressive superstructures and additions. But to say less than that [was] indecent, and perhaps even unreliable and dangerous. Literature did not lag behind the official tone. The "educated" society of that time, which consisted of nobles and officials, felt, of course, that the entire force of the popular movement was directed precisely against it, and it is understandable in what form the person personifying the terrible danger appeared to him. “You vile, impudent man,” Sumarokov exclaimed in pietic zeal at the news of Pugachev’s capture, “Suddenly whom nature cast down to a blessed age To the misfortune of many people: Forgetting both the truth and yourself, And only loving Satan, He thought about God without fear ... "This barbarian," says the same poet in another poem: ... spared neither age nor sex, The dog is so mad that he meets, he gnaws, Like so on a meadow from a blaty valley The dragon crawls hissingly. For this, of course, "there is no execution worthy of him in the world," "it is not enough to burn him," etc. The feelings of contemporaries, of course, are easily explained. Unfortunately for subsequent history, the initial investigation about Pugachev fell into the hands of an insignificant and completely incompetent man, Pavel Potemkin, who, apparently, made every effort to ensure that the original appearance of the monster brought up by the "hellish milk" was somehow not distorted by real features. he was tortured and tortured by the great Catherine, it is clear that all the material of the investigation developed in this biased direction: the popular, monochrome image was reinforced by forced testimony, and the real appearance of a living person was buried under the Suzdal daub of torture protocols. The mediocrity of this "second cousin" of the all-powerful temporary worker was so great that even the purely factual details of the most important episodes of Pugachev's previous life (for example, his trip to the Terek, where, apparently, he also tried to stir up confusion) became known from later random finds in the provincial archives ( One of his contemporaries, in a letter to Pavel Potemkin himself, pointed out that even after escaping from the Kazan prison, a significant part of the impostor's adventures remained untraceable before Pugachev's appearance on Yaik.). Pavel Potemkin tried only to thicken the "hellish milk" as much as possible and preserve the "satanic appearance". It must be said that the task was carried out with great success. Immediately after the mutiny was pacified, the military dictator Panin, invested with unlimited power, ordered that one gallows, one wheel and one verb for hanging "by the rib" (!) Not only rebels, but also everyone "who will to recognize and pronounce this villain, the impostor Emelka Pugachev, as the real one, as he was called (i.e., Peter III). And who does not "delay and not will present to the authorities such speakers, those villages, all without exception (!) Age-old men ... will be executed by sent teams with the most painful deaths, and their wives and children will be sent to the hardest work. "It is quite clear what a thunderstorm hung after that over all sorts of stories about Pugachev when gallows, wheels and verbs with hooks stood along the roads, teams walked around the villages, and scammers snooped around among the people. Everything that was not marked with an officially accepted tone, everything even just neutral stories became dangerous. divided: part went into the depths of the people's memory, away from the authorities and masters, gradually clothed in a haze of superstition and ignorance, the other, recognized and, so to speak, official, took shape in a gloomy, clumsy and also monotonous legend. and many of its purely factual details have disappeared, perhaps forever, in the fog of the past. "Still the beginning of this invention," Ekaterina wrote to Panin, "remains closed." It remains unclear to this day. The actual history of the rebellion from the outside is worked out in great detail, but its main character remains a mystery. The initial fear of "society" left its mark both on subsequent views and on history ... As a truly brilliant artist, Pushkin managed to renounce the pattern of his time so much that in his novel Pugachev, although passing in the background, is completely alive man. Sending his story of the Pugachev rebellion to Denis Davydov, the poet wrote, among other things: Here is my Pugach. At first glance, He is visible: a rogue, a straight Cossack. In your forward detachment, the constable would have been dashing. There is a huge distance between this image and not only the Sumarokovsky monster who loved Satan, but even Pugachev of later images (for example, in Danilevsky's "Black Year"). Pushkin's roguish and cunning Cossack, a bit of a robber in the song style (remember his conversation with Grinev about the eagle and the raven) - not devoid of movements of gratitude and even generosity - a real living face, full of life and artistic truth. However, a great difficulty arises whenever one has to bring this "dashing sergeant" to the forefront of a huge historical movement. Already Pogodin at one time turned to Pushkin with a number of questions that, in his opinion, were not resolved by the History of the Pugachev Rebellion. Many of these questions, despite the very valuable subsequent works of historians, are still waiting for their solution even today. And the main one is a mysterious person who stood at the center of the movement and gave him his name. Historians are hindered by a pile of consciously and unconsciously falsified investigative material. After Pushkin, our fiction even took a step back in understanding this major and, in any case, interesting historical figure. From the "dashing sergeant" and the roguish Cossack, we moved in the direction of the "hellish milk" and the popular villain. And it can be said without exaggeration that in our written and printed history, in the very center of a period not very remote from us and highly interesting, there is a kind of sphinx, a man without a face. The same cannot be said about Pugachev of folk legends, which have almost died out in the rest of Russia, but are extremely vividly preserved in the Urals, at least in the older Cossack generation. Here, neither strict decrees, nor Panin's verbs and hooks had time to erase from the people's memory the image of the "runaway" tsar, which remained in her inviolable, in the same - though rather fantastic, form in which this "king" first appeared from the mysterious steppe distance among the defeated, crushed, insulted and deeply humiliated ordinary Cossacks by the foreman's party. Trying to collect ancient legends that have not yet completely died out, to bring them together and, perhaps, to find among this fantastic heap the living features that stirred up the first wave of a major popular movement on Yaik, was one of the goals of my trip to the Urals in 1900. I was warned that in view of the isolation of the Cossacks and their distrust of any “out-of-town”, especially those who come from Russia, this task would be difficult to accomplish. And, indeed, once I had to stumble upon a rather comical failure. From one of the inhabitants of the Krugloozernaya village (Svistun), an old and respected Cossack Phil. Sidorovich Kovalev, I learned that in Uralsk, in kurens, near the church, there lives the grandson of Nikifor Petrovich Kuznetsov (Ustinya Petrovna's natural nephew), Natoriy (Enatoriy) Felisatovich Kuznetsov, a literate and inquisitive person who allegedly made some notes from the words of his grandfather, lover and keeper of the legends of the Kuznetsov family. The stories of this grandfather, Nikifor Kuznetsov, were already used by the famous Ural writer Yosaf Ign. Zheleznov, but I was still curious to see his grandson, the living successor of this tradition. I actually found him behind the cathedral, in the kurens, in an old, recently burnt house. However, when I explained to him the purpose of my visit and even referred to F.S. Kovalev's instructions, Natoriy Kuznetsov only frowned. “I can't tell you anything. The foster grandfather was right about what he said... Well, only I can't. Why not? - These are political speeches ... I was sincerely surprised. - Excuse me, Natoriy Felisatovich. Why, your grandfather told Zheleznov, and Zheleznov published it. However, no harm came of this for your grandfather. - Zheleznov wrote. Right. Well, only my grandfather told him maybe a tenth... To break this mistrust, I opened Zheleznov's book, which I had deliberately taken with me, and began to read Nikifor Kuznetsov's story written down by the author. Natorius listened and nodded his head approvingly, inserting his remarks. I was already beginning to hope that the ice would be broken, but at that moment Kuznetsov's wife, a dark-skinned Cossack woman with black determined eyes, got up from the threshold of the hut (our conversation took place in the yard). "Be quiet, Natorius," she said ominously. "If only there was one head." .. otherwise you have a family. In her arms, a baby began to cry, and Natorius immediately broke off. - No, it's impossible, - he said, - speeches are political... Whenever I wasn't shaken... - That is, how was it "shaken"?.. And for what? - But for this very thing - for Pugachev ... - What are you talking about! Who needs it now. - It is evident that it is necessary ... See how it was. "Be quiet, Natorii," said the Cossack woman again. - No, well, it's possible, nothing. See. So, I'm going somehow by rail to Peremetnaya. There were also in the car different nations like merchants. They began to talk among themselves in the same way: one, for example, says: "the king was real, that is, as he expressed about himself, he was real truth"... Well, the other is opposite him:" here, he says, it is written in Zheleznov: he admits that Don Cossack"And I mentioned my grandfather. I, as I was right there, and I say:" Zheleznov, then my grandfather told me, well, not everything. If I told you everything, then Zheleznov would have written something else. "We say something like this, and then the conductor. He was an acquaintance. He pulled me by the sleeve, took me aside and said:" You, he says, Natoriy Felisatov, can't these express words." - "What, they say?" - "Yes, do not express these speeches. Listen, political speeches. " Well, I obeyed. Only suddenly at one station - gendarmes. They locked the car, so as not to let anyone out, and they say: "Who here expressed political speeches"That's the point... Agreed... - Well, probably, they didn't do anything to anyone." Mr. Zheleznov wrote, officer. If you please, I'll take a look." Well, I, then, thanks to the conductor, aside. I only escaped with fear. was with him twice. Both times he very willingly talked about his grandfather, about the former residence of the Kuznetsovs, about their relationship, and at the same time indirectly told me a lot of interesting things both in everyday life and in historical terms. But, as soon as the conversation directly touched on a forbidden topic ", the Cossack woman again pierced him with her black eyes, and he bit his tongue. - I can’t, political speeches," he repeated stubbornly. I even think that he could hardly tell me anything more characteristic than this little episode from our living present.In other places, especially during my trip through the villages, I was happier.The aged Cossacks are more brave than the youth , and were more willing to share their knowledge and their deep convictions on the subject. Having collected what I managed to write down by personal feedback and what was written down by others, and looking through this material in a row, I was struck by the remarkable integrity of the image that grew out of these fragments, as well as by the deep faith of the narrators in its reality. The belief that the stranger who raised the fatal storm in 1773 was the real Peter Fedorovich, keeps in the Urals not only in a simple ordinary Cossacks. I got to know pretty well historical family Sheludyakov, whose ancestors took an active part in the fatal drama. Pugachev was very fond of one of the Sheludyakovs and for some reason called his godfather. Subsequently, he was captured near Orenburg and was tortured to death in a dungeon. Thus, in this family, as in many others in the Urals, historical interest is mixed with family tradition. Already the parents of the current Sheludyakovs were quite intelligent people, and, however, when his father was dying (in the early seventies), he expressed regret that he would not live to see 1875, when, according to common belief, the seal of secrecy from the Pugachev case should be removed at that time. it should have been revealed that Yaik in general and the Sheludyakov families in particular served a just cause. They say that Pushkin, during his visit and short stay in Uralsk, showed contemporaries of the rebellion a portrait of the real Pyotr Fedorovich, whose Holstein physiognomy, as you know, did not at all resemble the Cossack appearance of Pugachev. However, now I heard from several lips that in this portrait the Cossacks recognized just the same person who was with them on Yaik. In general, when pointing to the resolute denial by history of any possibility of this identity, even among intelligent Cossacks you will encounter an expression of hesitation and skepticism. However, it must be admitted that, as already mentioned above; written history suffers from great omissions, incompleteness, and sometimes even outright contradictions. And most importantly - it leaves the central figure of a man "without a face." The popular imagination cannot, of course, reconcile itself to this. He, of course, is alien to historical criticism, but on the other hand, the semi-fantastic image drawn by folk tradition is distinguished by remarkable fullness and brightness. This is a living person with all the advantages and disadvantages real person and if sometimes a mystical and mysterious element is mixed with these real features, then this applies only to his royal title. Pyotr Fedorovich of Cossack legends - real man, with flesh and blood, seething with desires and passions; Tsar Peter III is surrounded by a halo of mystery and fatal, not quite natural influences. The reasons for his overthrow from the throne are drawn with particular realism. Cossack tradition presents Peter III as a broad nature, a reveler and an unfaithful husband. His behavior is one of those that have to be justified famous saying: come true is not a reproach to the young man. Catherine, on the contrary, at this time is portrayed, although rather obstinate, but still faithful wife trying to appease her husband. On this basis, a catastrophe is played out. Once a foreign ship came, and Pyotr Fedorovich went on it, and even went on a spree with the noble maiden Vorontsova. The indication of this name, coinciding with historical reality, shows how widely, in fact, various court "komerages" spread in those days. “After all, from us,” the Cossack Bakirev told Zheleznov, “from time immemorial, every year, Cossacks traveled to Moscow and St. Petersburg with royal kus ... So how can one not know. that the tsar is being laid with Vorontsova. That, as a wife, it seemed insulting, she could not stand it and ran there herself. She came and said: "Isn't it time to go home?" But her husband, who had gone on a spree, rudely drove her away: "I went home myself, as long as I was intact." Then the insulted Catherine invited her adherents, raised the icons and declared herself queen. When the king, who had been on a spree, with a hangover in his victorious little head, finally decided on the third or fourth night to return home, he found the gates locked, and the sentry announced that there was no king, but there was a queen. He poked his head into Kronstadt (again, a historical trait), but they didn't let him in there either. Then, fearing the hostile boyars, Pyotr Fedorovich decided to hide ... At this point, the personality of Pyotr Fedorovich disappears in the fog, and a mystical power is established over the tsar higher power some mysterious predestination. It turns out that somewhere it was supposed from time immemorial that the royal grandson of Peter the Great would have to know a lot of grief and suffer like a simple exile, persecuted and persecuted in within fifteen (according to other options twelve) years. He was supposed to show up at the earliest. But the regal wanderer, who learned from himself all the suffering of the people and all the untruth of the authorities, having also ended up on Yaik, at that time really “suffered great misery”, groaning under the pressure of blatant untruth and terrible repressions, after the Traubenberg case, could not stand it and, submitting again, albeit in a different direction, to his stormy nature, he violated the dictates of fate and showed up earlier. It's a breach of command higher will, caused by compassion and unbearable pity for the tormented people, is in the legends the tragic engine that determined the fate of the movement. Everything was for Pugachev, but he could not win his case precisely because he did not start on time. And he knew it. It is extremely interesting that family tradition Kuznetsov connects the very marriage of the fugitive tsar with this tragic consciousness. In the stories recorded by Zheleznov, this marriage is motivated by various considerations: firstly, the law is not written for kings; secondly, the law also allows marriage after a seven-year separation; thirdly, Catherine was his persecutor; fourthly, finally, at that time (true, but belated) rumors were circulating on Yaik about Catherine's intention to marry Orlov. But the aforementioned Enatoriy Kuznetsov, in the midst of his restrained conversation, informed me that both Pugachev and even Ustinya were well aware of the fatal significance of this wedding. When Pugachev began to clearly express his intentions regarding the matchmaking, then Ustinya, a cheerful, broken and good songwriter, allegedly composed a song in which she spoke very boldly about a husband who is wooing from a living wife. Pugachev took her aside and said: “It’s better to let my head alone disappear than the whole of Russia disappear. Now troops and generals are coming from St. Petersburg to me; And when I marry a Cossack girl, the troops will not come to me, my fate will end and Russia will calm down. I heard the repetition of the same tragic motif in other places in the Urals. Thus, the tsar-wanderer, who involuntarily violated the dictates of fate, dutifully walked towards her, and Ustya went towards his will ... The public execution of Pugachev in Moscow (January 10, 1775) in the presence of hundreds of thousands of people did not shake this faith. On the contrary, it must be said that some of the circumstances of this execution were accompanied by just those ambiguities of motives and oddities that I spoke about above and which are very helpful to harmonious folk tradition. According to the maxim approved by Catherine, Pugachev was subject to quartering. First, his arms and legs were to be cut off, and then his head. However, it is known that this was not carried out. After reading the sentence and fulfilling the formalities, the executioner grabbed Pugachev from behind, knocked him down and, first of all, cut off his head. After that, among the silence that settled, the voice of the executor was heard, reproaching the executioner and threatening him with execution for violating the sentence (Un d "entre-eux [that is, one of the closest spectators], que je crois avoir êtê un des juges censura à haute voix le bourreau de sa mêprise ("One of them, I believe, one of the judges, scolded the executioner in a loud voice for his mistake", - eyewitness correspondence in the Utrecht Gazette, March 3, 1775, Thu in the Island of East and etc.) Bolotov calls this official an executor. ). This indisputable fact, established both by Russian and foreign testimonies, served as the subject of astonished talk. Mrs. Bielke, an enthusiastic admirer and correspondent of Catherine, having read about this in foreign newspapers, suggested in her next letter that this was done "according to the humane will of the Empress, and not by mistake of the executioner." Catherine willingly went towards such an interpretation of her European admirer. “To tell you the truth,” she wrote, “you correctly guessed about the mistake of the executioner during the execution of Pugachev: I think that the prosecutor general and the police chief helped to make this mistake happen, because when the first one left Petersburg, I told him jokingly: "Never catch my eye if you allow the slightest opinion that you forced whoever endure torment, and I see that he took this into account "(Collection of Historical Islands, XXVII, 32. Italics in the quotation are mine.). It is permissible, however, to think that this explanation is not entirely accurate. That before Vyazemsky's departure the tsarina had conversations with him, this, of course, is natural; they were hardly just carried on in jest. That the fact of a sharp violation of the sentence could not also be explained by a simple mistake of the executioner, it is hardly possible to doubt it. However, if it were not meant allow unnecessary suffering whoever it was- then, firstly, Catherine had a direct means for this - in the mitigation of all executions, and then humanity would have touched more than one Pugachev. Meanwhile, on the same day and in the same place, other Pugachev accomplices were executed, and no one mentions the mitigation of the execution of, for example, Perfiliev. It is hardly logical to assume that Catherine's humanity touched only one main culprit and bypassed the secondary ones. And then, of course, the executor could not have been unaware of this, by his shouting at the executioner only emphasized the deviation from the sentence, which otherwise could have passed less noticed. Be that as it may, this strange episode was not only mysterious to the hundreds of thousands of spectators who gathered on the day of the execution in the Swamp, but remains not fully explained for history either. To this it should only be added that among the crowd of thousands of troops and people there was also the Zimovaya Yaitskaya village, which consisted of the "faithful", that is, the senior side of the Cossacks, who, even fighting with Pugachev, for the most part still considered him a real king, fighting against the queen ... And, returning to Yaik, the Cossacks told about the strange episode of the execution. The legend made good use of this riddle. She knows no inconsistencies and contradictions. It is whole, harmonious, often very fantastic, sometimes absurd, but completely consistent and logical. The Ural army did not believe in the execution of Pugachev. The king cannot be executed. The man whom Bolotov describes on the scaffold "completely inconsistent with such deeds as this monster did," but rather resembling "some kind of canteen or a shabby tavern," in the opinion of the Cossacks, was not at all the one whom the army saw on horseback and who, by his mere appearance, upset the ranks of opponents. It was, according to the legend, a figurehead, some ordinary criminal. And when he supposedly wanted to say that he was dying instead of the real king, they hurried to cut off his head ... To joined this new fact, historically correct and capturing the imagination of the people, namely sudden death Martemyan Borodin ... Martemyan Borodin is the most prominent figure among Pugachev's Cossack opponents, who played a huge, almost decisive role in the pre-Pugachev ferment in the Urals, and a direct antithesis of Pugachev in the eyes of the "army". The rich man, who captured the immeasurable spaces of the "common" steppe, the owner of serfs on the free Cossack lands, a rapist, a robber, a man with an iron will, a stormy temperament and at the same time a cunning diplomat who knew how to bribe and cajole the St. Petersburg authorities - he was a soul hated by the Cossacks senior party, which before the appearance of Pugachev even bore the name "Borodino". Even Catherine's personal decrees were directed against him and his actions, but he knew how to turn them into nothing, skillfully causing unrest, after which his opponents turned out to be guilty. It can be assumed with a high degree of probability that if Martemyan Borodin had not been on Yaik, there would not have been the murder of Traubenberg, which preceded the Pugachevshchina, there would not have been, perhaps, Pugachev ... But, as often happens, Martemyan, the true culprit, who caused general discontent and justified anger in the army, which led to an outbreak, then, by fighting against the movement he had caused, not only "deserved" his thefts and grave guilt, but also appeared in the eyes of the government in an aura of devotion and self-sacrifice. In the fight against Pugachev, for Martemyan, it was about his own head, over which the accusations and curses of the entire army weighed heavily, but Martemyan very cleverly presented this enmity of the troops towards him as his services to the throne. At the very appearance of Pugachev, Martemyan realized the danger, first of all for himself personally, and rushed across the Kirghiz steppe to Orenburg ... Subsequently, when Pugachev was already put in an iron cage, Catherine's generals knew that Martemyan would be his best watchman. And, indeed, Martemyan was instructed to accompany the captive to Moscow ... () 1 "According to the legends of the Cossacks," says Zheleznov (III, 203), "Borodin was among Pugachev's escorts, but according to some information that has come down to me, I conclude that he did not escort Pugachev, but arrived in Petersburg already in November or even December 1774". This is not true. Among the extracts made by me from the military archive, there is an extract from the Decree Ch. Kriegs-Commissariat from the office to Mr. Prime Major Borodin dated 22 December. 1774, which provides a calculation of the money following "for the arrival with you from Yaitsky's army with fish, as well as for conveying the villain Pugachev to Moscow, which is in command of your light village" (total complaints., run., As well as for ladles and sabers 633 rubles). Thus, obviously, in this respect the Cossack tradition is not mistaken, and Pugachev was accompanied to Moscow by Martemyan Borodin. Cossack legends give many details of this path. First of all, behind the city rampart and the tower along the Kazan highway, Borodin's relatives went out, according to custom, to see him on the road. They began to drink vodka and liqueur. Pugach looked out of the cage and said: "Martemyan Mikhailovich! Bring it to me too." But Martemyan rudely refused. Pugachev turned pale from insult and said: "All right! You want to see my death. It won't work. I'll see yours sooner." A little later, one of the foremen, Mikhailov, came up to him and offered him from his glass. Pugachev drank and said: “Thank you, my friend. I will not forget you. Remember what I will say,” said Pugach to everyone who was here: “from now on, the Mikhailov family will rise, and the Borodin family will fall” (Zheleznov, vol. III, p. 205. The prediction was not entirely justified. Martemyan Borodin's son was a military ataman. However, he died childless, and now there are no direct descendants of Martemyan.). Dear Pugach also warned Borodin and told him with a grin: “Martemyan Mikhailovich, think about where you are going, why? .. Hey, Martemyan Mikhailovich. , confirming to me with deep conviction everything Zheleznov wrote down from different persons, he added to this a few more episodes, heard, according to him, from the participants themselves or from their closest relatives. By the way, with Martemyan Borodin, as an orderly, was his favorite, a young Cossack Mikhailo Tuzhilkin. Once, somewhere at a halt, during a rest, the stern chieftain forced Tuzhilkin to search in his head. Finding this moment suitable for an intimate conversation, Tuzhilkin asked: "Tell me, Martemyan Mikhailovich, who are we taking: the tsar or the impostor?" “The king, Mishenka,” Martemyan seemed to answer. Tuzhilkin was horrified. - Why are we doing this! he exclaimed. “But what was there to do ... All the same, neither he nor our forces would have taken it,” answered Borodin. In the Sakmara fortress, where a train with Pugachev in a cage allegedly arrived, they met a courier from St. Petersburg (It is interesting that, according to Cossack legends, Pugachev was apparently being taken through Orenburg. Otherwise, the train could not have reached Sakmara.). Going up to the cage and seeing Pugachev there, the courier trembled and clasped his hands (Ananiy Ivanovich very dramatically and picturesquely portrayed the horror of the courier and his gestures). “God, my God, what have you done!” - he shouted, - unlock it, unlock it now! .. What will happen now? .. This horror was explained, of course, by the fact that the officer recognized the tsar in the cell ... for a long time he persuaded him to disband the Cossacks and "simply" go with Pugachev to St. Petersburg, to the queen. This naive sentence reflects the feature of the Yaik legends about the "runaway tsar" already indicated above. His fate, as a king, had already been decided, his case was lost, he violated the dictates of fate, and the kingdom remained with Catherine. But his person was sacred, and, moreover, he remained the husband of the tsarina and the father of the tsarevich, the heir ... Borodin did not obey, and for this he really suffered the execution, as Pugach predicted. Fate punished Pyotr Fedorovich, who violated her decrees, but the same fate could not bypass the person who encroached on the dignity of the "tsar" and carried him in a cage like a beast. The very death of Martemyan Borodin is told differently, but most of the legends attribute it to Pavel Petrovich (All the way Martemyan fought with Pugach and reproached each other. Martemyan threatened him with the queen, and Pugach was his heir. "Give me time," said Martemyan, "to get there to the queen: she will give you a bath, you won’t forget until new brooms. "And Pugach to him:" Give him time to get to Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich. He will set you such heat that the sky will seem like a sheepskin. When Martemyan appeared at the palace to the heir, - Ananiy Ivanovich Khokhlachov told me, - he said to him: - What was it to you, ataman sir, not to accept my dad? If you accepted, then my dad would be in Russia now, and I, and you are the third. Well, now, ataman sir, do not seek. And they struck the big bell. The winter Yaitskaya village stands on the square near the palace, waiting for its marching ataman, but he is still not there. And suddenly they hear: they ring the big bell, as if in remembrance. .. The adjutant came out onto the porch and said to the Cossacks: "Your ataman is gone. The ataman died overnight. Go with God." The very kind of death is also depicted differently. In the stories of homebody Cossacks who have not been to the capitals, it is said that Pavel Petrovich, angry, grabbed the door "lock" (a wooden bolt that moves the gate) and hit Borodin on the head with it. According to other versions, the execution was even more cruel, up to the skinning of a living person. Here, obviously, the deep hatred of the then army for Martemyan already played a creative role. Finally, some legends attribute the death of Borodin to Catherine herself, who could not forgive rough treatment with her husband. “Martemyan Mikhailovich got ready to leave St. Petersburg (says one legend recorded by Zheleznov) and went to say goodbye to the empress, and ordered the batman to gradually pack up. Suddenly he ran to the apartment, frightened, pale, as if someone was chasing him. “Run for the carts, we’re going.” "Dear Martemyan kept shouting to the coachman: drive on! We passed a few stations, Martemyan said to the driver in Kirghiz: 'What a miracle, brother, I have seen... I am standing at the Queen's mother's bedchamber, telling her how we fought against the villain Amelka.' And he, Pugach, suddenly jumps out from behind the screen, like a fierce beast, and as he rushes at me with his fists, I froze indo ... Now, brother, I see that I made a mistake: I wouldn’t come here at all. God bless them... Khosh published that he was Amelka Pugachev, but it turns out - that's what Pugach he is... He didn't have time to finish how the courier catches up with them from behind and demands Martemyan again to the queen. Another version draws the same episode with even more real details. Pugach is lying in the bedchamber behind white muslin curtains - "it seems that he has just left the bathhouse: his hair is wet, and his face is red. At his feet, on a chair, the prince sits, and the queen is at the window. And everyone is crying, wiping their tears with handkerchiefs. And at the lintel, like a vested soldier, stands Martemyan Mikhailovich, - stands and trembles, as if in the cold. (Zheleznov.) Ananiy Ivanovich Khokhlachev adds to this that Borodin's widow received Catherine's handwritten letter and two velvet dresses: one green, the other black. “But it was written in the letter that, they say, I am guilty of your grief, I am a sinner ...” And Anania Ivanovich’s brother-in-law, who lived there, herself saw both the letter and dresses ... It should be noted that neither the exact date nor even the year of the death of Martemyan Borodin is unknown, and this event is also covered with some kind of uncertainty. Zheleznov doubts that Borodin accompanied Pugachev, as they say Cossack legends . He attributes the death of Borodin to April 1775 on the grounds that in May a new military foreman Akutin was appointed. But in this case, Zheleznov is mistaken, and the legend is right. Firstly, Borodin was not a military leader, but only a marching ataman, but he undoubtedly accompanied Pugachev, and there is a high probability that he died during this trip. In the files of the Ural military archive, I found an indication that the thousand rubles assigned as a reward to Borodin were received in Orenburg, by proxy of Borodin's widow, by Grigory Telnov of the fiftieth (which was followed by a decree of the Orenburg provincial office dated November 28, 1774). Then I did not come across any mention of Martemyan Borodin in my files until August 1775, when in one of the petitions the deceased major Borodin was mentioned quite by accident. This dull and indefinite interval produces a strange impression, after the name of an active foreman had previously come across at every step ... There is no doubt that M. Borodin's "guilt" before the government was enormous. Catherine wrote decrees, sent generals to stop abuses, but the foremen's party, whose soul was Borodin, bullied the generals and turned the queen's decrees into nothing until it caused a revolt and bloody pacification, which paved the way for Pugachevism. The army explained these abuses and impotence of power by the fact that it was not a real king, but a woman on the throne ... And when the king appeared, the army greeted him with delight. In general, the Pugachev movement seems to me, in its psychological basis, one of the most loyal movements of the Russian people. Of course, in the very embryo of it lurked (and even then quite imperceptibly) conscious deception. When in a mysterious merchant, dressed in a bad shirt and simple trousers, it was necessary to recognize the tsar and announce this to the army, the Cossack Myasnikov, shrugging his shoulders, said: "All right. We will make a prince out of mud." But not everyone, even among the first participants, thought this. When Pugachev, dressed in royal clothes (a caftan was presented by the Kirghiz Khan), on an excellent horse, with two banners and a detachment, rode to the outposts, then sincere faith and sincere feeling rushed to meet him, which accompanied him all the time to the block. At the same time, it is remarkable that the image of Catherine (as you know, hated and still hated by the people in peasant Russia) surrounds the Ural tradition with some kind of reverence and gentleness. She was a woman, and that was her shortcoming on the throne. “We do not slander the empress,” the Bashkirs said at the meeting. “She is just, but justice has not departed from her and has not come to us.” Of course, the same could be said by the Cossacks, whose deputies returned from St. Petersburg more than once, in vain encouraged by Catherine herself. "Personally, the legend treats Catherine rather mildly. Offended, as a woman and wife, she feels understandable indignation and decides to coup. But at the same time, she cannot forgive her rough treatment of her husband, and when, after so many adventures, he returns, - - she puts him to bed and cries about his suffering. Her relationship with Ustinya Kuznetsova (in reality, unsympathetic and cruel: poor Ustya was imprisoned for life in a fortress) in the tradition of the Cossacks is also marked by generosity and feminine kindness. Catherine calls Ustya to Petersburg and treats This theme - the meeting of two wives of supposedly the same troubled husband - is developed in detail and willingly in many stories recorded by Zheleznov. I also heard it from the lips of Anani Ivanovich and partly Natori Kuznetsov. In all the stories, one feature is mentioned: when Ustya, along with her sister, was brought to the palace, Catherine ordered to bring different people to her and kept asking: is this your betrothed? Ustya answered everything in the negative. Finally, Pugach was taken out, and she threw herself on his neck. “Well,” said Catherine, “say goodbye to him, you will never see him again.” and where she often visited the Urals, who came to the capital. I have to note one more cycle of these legends, which shows what passionate love Yaik had for the image of his "runaway king", which cost him so many tears, grief and blood. It is known that passionate love does not reconcile with the fact of the death of a loved one. And Pugachev, caught and even executed, still flickered on Yaik and appeared to his followers either in the steppes or in the city itself. These legends about the wandering and again persecuted Pugachev are already completely fantastic, but they cannot be denied a kind of poetry, full of melancholy and sadness. One of these stories (recorded from the words of the old Iletsk Cossack S. V. Krylov, now living in Uralsk in 1900) finds Pugachev wandering around the Common Syrt (after fleeing from Berda). Pugachev with a small detachment rides across the steppe and runs into a large stone. Having ordered the Cossacks to hobble their horses and wait for him, Pugachev approaches the stone and falls on it with bitter tears. The stone rises, and Pugachev goes underground. After a while, he comes out and calls for the Cossacks. In the dungeon they are met by a majestic woman who greets the Cossacks and invites them to reinforce their forces. To do this, she has only a small piece of bread, but when she starts cutting it, the bread does not decrease. Pugachev calls her aunt, and in conversation she reproaches him that he did not wait for the time appointed for the test and, having announced earlier, he also got married. A strange woman, transported by some unknown means to the Yaik steppes, and, moreover, underground, was Elizaveta Petrovna. Saying goodbye to his aunt, Pugach again galloped with his companions to the steppe towards a mysterious fate ... In the evening on the very day that Pugach was taken away from the Yaitsky town, - says another legend recorded by Zheleznov, - the Kuznetsovs - his relatives - were sitting during the dinner. Suddenly: the doors opened and a merchant entered (it is known that for the first time Pugachev appeared on Yaik in the form of a merchant). “Bread and salt,” he said, entering, and all the Kuznetsovs shuddered and their spoons fell out of hands ("it means he was there, they recognized him by his voice"). - "Don't be afraid, it's me," says the merchant. hello." He said and was. The Kuznetsovs ran out into the street, and his trace disappeared, only the bell rang ... That same evening, two hours earlier, the same merchant was even at the chieftain. And again, at first they didn’t recognize him, and when another merchant who came to the chieftain recognized him, then again everyone was so dumbfounded that the mysterious visitor managed to hide ... Only again the bell rang on the way to the Chuvash umet ... This faith was once so it is strong that in the papers of the military archive I came across cases that arose precisely on this basis. So, the foreman's wife Praskovya Ivanaeva, who was a cook at the "Queen Ustinya" and cooked in the "palace" for Pugachev, was twice whipped for not believing in the final defeat of the "tsar" and, in every quarrel with the triumphant "foreman's party" (and the old woman, apparently, was of a stubborn disposition), "talked about the impostor for society obscene and ungodly" and even threatened his new arrival, "which was supposedly famous at that time." It is known, finally, that soon after the pacification, the authorities were alarmed by the appearance of Pugachev allegedly again, under the name of Metla or Zametail. But it turned out to be a simple robber, a pathetic parody in which there was nothing that could really stir up the weary popular feeling. Such are these legends, still alive, but already beginning to fade in the people's memory in the Urals. I found them interesting. All of them are marked by a deep belief in the truth of Pugachev's royal dignity, and the person they portray is very far from the real and undoubted personality of the insignificant Peter III. Cossack Pyotr Feodorovich does not look like a German at all (although in some stories it is mentioned that he was a German). Stormy, frivolous, unrestrained, he insults Catherine, his lawful wife, for which he is forced to wander and be punished. Cleansed by this redemptive period, he remains just as unrestrained in his passionate pity for the people and violates the dictates of fate (or "old scriptures"), appearing before the appointed time. Then he releases again passionate nature and marries Ustinya. From this, his business perishes. And yet, fighting him, and especially insulting his person, is an insult to the mystically superstitious folk performance about the true king, and the main culprit of this crime is duly punished ... For Yaik, this was only a fatal clash between two representatives of power, tragically divided, but equally having big bases... The queen won thanks to the fact that the ardent king violated the dictates of fate ... Yes, this image was only a shadow of the persecuted king. But this shadow shook Russia... A haze of the steppe, a ghost - and a whole series of conquered fortresses and won battles... For this, someone's infernal treachery and sedition were not enough. For this, deep suffering and faith were needed ... And it was, however, all imbued with ignorance and political superstition, which, unfortunately, lived for a long time in the dark masses, as these fantastic legends live in the Urals now. 1901

NOTES

The essay was written in the autumn of 1900 and included by the writer as a separate chapter in the essays "At the Cossacks", submitted for printing to the magazine " Russian wealth". When the essays were already typed, the author took the "Pugachev legend" back, suggesting, perhaps, to use it in the story "The Runaway Tsar", from the era of the Pugachev movement, on which he was then working. However, Korolenko did not write this story, and "Pugachevskaya the legend" was never published during the life of the writer. It was first published after his death, in 1922, in the tenth book of the journal "Voice of the Past". On October 26, 1900, Korolenko wrote to N. F. Annensky about the "Pugachev legend", that it "constitutes the best and most interesting chapter written so far ( we are talking about the essays "At the Cossacks" - Ed.). The material for it was partly printed works Cossack Zheleznov, partly the traditions I collected from the old Cossacks and partly - the military archive. It is interesting that while the "printed" historical Pugachev still remains a man "without a face", the Pugachev of legend is a living face, with extraordinarily bright and downright real features, an integral image, endowed with human shortcomings and semi-mythical grandeur " king." I myself was struck by this when I put together all these stories ... "

This year marks 240 years since the Pugachev uprising was finally crushed and its leader was executed. Today, no one doubts that Pugachev was an impostor, but there is still no consensus as to why the Yaik Cossacks followed Pugachev. Some historians argue that the Cossacks did not believe in his royal origin, but used it, hoping, in case of victory, to get their own benefit. Others, on the contrary, believe that it was Pugachev who used the Cossacks, knowing their dissatisfaction with the oppression by the tsarist government. Surprisingly, here in Uralsk, Cossack families to this day keep the traditions of their ancestors, who for the most part were sure: "He was not an impostor, but a real king."

Who "Used" Whom?

The version that the Cossacks "used" Pugachev was first expressed by Pushkin in the History of the Pugachev Rebellion. And the first to object to this was the Ural writer Iosaf Zheleznov. He encroached on Pushkin's authority by writing a "Critical article on the" History of the Pugachev rebellion by A.S. Pushkin. Pushkin stayed in Uralsk for three days, Zheleznov lived here all his life, and he had the right to his opinion.

“... It seems strange, surprising, incomprehensible to me why it was the author of the “History of the Pugachev Rebellion” who exposed simple, illiterate Yaik, now Ural Cossacks to the light of some kind of politicians, cunning intriguers, state conspirators, people who encroached on the overthrow of the legitimate and holy royal power , while in reality they were pathetic ignoramuses, stupid simpletons, stray sheep, carried away into rebellion by the deceit and cunning of Pugachev, ”Zheleznov writes in his essay.

Zheleznov admits that he is “scared” to express an opinion “contrary to the essay brilliant writer", but he "relies on facts."

Zheleznov writes that, according to Pushkin, it turns out that the Cossacks themselves “invented the impostor in order to have an excuse to get rowdy and self-willed,” that it was the Cossacks who “took” Pugachev to the impostor. No, says Zheleznov, it was Pugachev who managed to convince the Cossacks that he was a persecuted, unfortunate tsar. The Cossacks were afraid to talk about this to Pushkin, the gallows and “verbs” were still fresh in their memory (devices on which they hung the executioner by the ribs by an iron hook - so that they would suffer longer). After all, even after almost a hundred years, the writer Korolenko spoke about Pugachev with apprehension. At the same time, folk traditions, which "almost died out in the rest of Russia, were extremely vividly preserved in the Urals," Korolenko wrote after his visit to Uralsk. - Here, neither the decrees, nor the verbs and hooks of Panin had time to erase from the people's memory the image of the "running" tsar, who remained inviolable in it, in that same one, however, quite fantastic view in which this "king" appeared for the first time from the mysterious steppe distance among the defeated, crushed, insulted and deeply humiliated ordinary Cossacks by the foreman's side.

Walking is not a reproach to the young man

And yet, no matter how dark and illiterate the Cossacks were, why did they believe that Pugachev was Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich? What legends circulated in the Urals about the "runaway" tsar?

The overthrow of the king from the throne of the Cossack Ural legend draws with special realism. Like, Tsar Peter the Third was a broad kind - a reveler and an unfaithful husband, and this, they say, is not a reproach to the young man. Catherine, on the contrary, was a wife, though obstinate, but faithful. Once a foreign ship came, Pyotr Fedorovich went on it and went on a spree with a noble maiden Vorontsova. They reported this to the queen. She could not stand it, she ran after her husband: "Isn't it time to return home?" And he rudely replies to her: “I went home myself, as long as I’m intact.” Insulted, Catherine gathered her followers, raised her icons, and declared herself queen. When, having walked up, the tsar returned to the royal gates, they were locked, and the sentry announced to him that the tsar was no longer there, but there was a queen. The tsar poked his head into Kronstadt, but they didn’t let him in there either. Then, fearing the boyars, Pyotr Fedorovich decided to hide ...

Describing this legend, Zheleznov notes two true facts: love affair the real tsar with Vorontsova and the fact that after being overthrown from the throne he really rushed to Kronstadt.

Zheleznov asked the Cossack Bakirev: "How do they know this?" He replied:

- After all, from time immemorial, the Cossacks traveled from us to Moscow and St. Petersburg with the royal kus ... So how can one not know. Murder will out…

After the exile, Tsar Peter, according to the Cossack legend, disappears into the fog. According to some higher predestination, he will have to wander for fifteen years and show up no earlier than this period. But in his wanderings he ends up on Yaik, at that time "groaning under the pressure of flagrant untruth and repression." And the king, violating the dictates of fate, decides to appear earlier than he was predestined.

“This violation of the command of the higher will, caused by compassion and unbearable pity for the tormented people, is in the legends the tragic engine that determined the fate of the movement. Everything was for Pugachev, but he could not win his case precisely because he did not start it on time, ”such was the opinion of the Cossacks.

"I marry a Cossack - Russia will calm down"

The second point that Zheleznov draws attention to, and after him Korolenko: how could the Cossacks, believing that they had a real tsar, marry him with a living wife to the Cossack woman Ustinya Kuznetsova? Of course, they pursued their own benefit: if a Yaik Cossack woman will be on the throne, they will also be happy. But even here, Zheleznov was given several explanations that ruled out a selfish motive.

First, the law is not written for kings. Secondly, the law allows you to marry a second time after a seven-year separation. Thirdly, Catherine herself expelled her lawful husband and persecuted him. In addition, at that time there were rumors on Yaik that Catherine was going to marry Orlov.

Ustinya's nephew, Natoriy Kuznetsov, told Zheleznov that Ustinya, a cheerful, broken girl, even composed a song about this matchmaking, which boldly spoke of a husband wooing from a living wife. And Pugachev took her aside and allegedly said that this was necessary to save Russia. “It would be better for my head to disappear than for the whole of Russia to disappear. Now troops and generals are coming from St. Petersburg to me, if they come to me, then all of Russia will catch fire, the smoke will become a pillar all over the world. And when I marry a Cossack woman, the troops will not come to me, my fate will end, and Russia will calm down. That is, Pugachev, allegedly, was sure that the tsarist troops sent to pacify him would certainly go over to his side.

Didn't believe in punishment

They did not believe in the execution of Pugachev on Yaik: the tsar cannot be executed. The public execution of Pugachev - January 10, 1775 - did not shake this belief at all. Legends and traditions were supported by separate historical facts. Hundreds of thousands of people saw the execution of Pugachev, including the Yaik Winter Village, which fought against Pugachev. According to their stories, pitiful person, who asked the people for forgiveness, did not look much like the one whom the Cossacks saw as a winner on horseback. As you know, Pugachev was sentenced to quartering, i.e. first they had to cut off the arms, legs, and then the head. But the executioner, immediately after reading the sentence, threw him on the chopping block and first cut off his head. For which the executor loudly scolded the executioner and threatened him with punishment (from the testimony of an eyewitness to the execution, published in the Utrekhskaya Gazeta on March 3, 1775). Then they will say that this was the decree of Catherine, who valued her image of a humane and enlightened empress before the West.

But why did this humanity touch only the main culprit, but bypassed the secondary ones? This strange episode became the basis for a legend in the Urals: Catherine spared her husband, and on Lobnoye mesto executed a completely different person. He wanted to announce to the people before his death that the king was alive, so the executioner hurried to cut off his head.

This legend was overgrown with all sorts of details. It seems like Pugachev is lying in the queen's bedchamber behind muslin curtains: his hair is wet, his face is red, it can be seen that he just got out of the bath. At his feet is the prince, and at the window the queen wipes her tears with a handkerchief. And everyone around them is crying, and Martemyan Mikhailovich Borodin is standing at the lintel - standing and trembling, as if in the cold (Zheleznov "Urals").

Why Ataman Borodin (whose portrait by the famous artist Tropinin now hangs in the Pushkin Museum) “stands and trembles” is a separate story.

The fact is that Martemyan Borodin is the most prominent of Pugachev's Cossack opponents. In Pugachev, Borodin saw a danger to himself, since the Cossacks hated this ataman.

“When Pugachev was already put in an iron cage, Catherine's generals knew that Martemyan would be his best watchman. And, indeed, Martemyan was instructed to accompany the captive to Moscow ... "(Korolenko. "Pugachev's legends in the Urals").

The old Cossack Khokhlachev told Korolenko another episode "with deep conviction". Borodin was accompanied by his orderly, the young Cossack Tuzhilkin. And he asked Borodin: "Who are we still carrying - the tsar or the impostor?" And it seems that Borodin answered him: "The king, Mishenka, the king." Tuzhilkin was horrified: "Why are we doing this!" “Yes, what was there to do ... Anyway, neither he nor our force would have taken it,” Borodin allegedly replied.

He really died suddenly soon, and this fact “struck the imagination of the people.” “It should be noted that neither the exact date nor even the year of the death of Martemyan Borodin is known, and this event is also covered with some kind of uncertainty,” writes Korolenko. - In the files of the Ural military archive, I found an indication that the thousand rubles assigned as a reward to Borodin were received in Orenburg, by proxy of Borodin's widow, by the fiftieth Grigory Telnov. Then I did not come across any mention of Martemyan Borodin in my files until August 1775, when in one of the petitions the deceased major Borodin was mentioned quite by accident. This dull and indefinite gap makes a strange impression after the name of an active foreman used to come across at every step ... ”(Korolenko).

According to Cossack legends, Borodin was allegedly killed by the son of Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich, Pavel, who avenged his father. According to another legend, Catherine herself ordered his execution.

And all this is described in colors and details.

“Martemyan Mikhailovich got ready to leave St. Petersburg and went to say goodbye to the empress, and ordered the batman to gradually fit in. Suddenly he ran to the apartment, frightened, pale, as if someone was chasing him. "Run faster for carts, let's go." Dear Martemyan kept shouting to the driver: "Drive!" We passed a few stations, Martemyan says to the driver in Kyrgyz:

“What a miracle I have seen, brother… I am standing in the bedchamber of my mother-tsarina, telling her how we fought against the villain Amelka. And he, Pugach, suddenly jumps out from behind the screen, like a fierce beast, and as he rushes at me with his fists, I froze indo ... Now, brother, I see that I made a mistake: I wouldn’t come here at all. God bless them ... Khosh and published that he was Amelka Pugachev, but it turns out - there he is, what a Pugach ...

He did not have time to finish how the courier catches up with them from behind and demands Martemyan again to the queen ”(tradition recorded by I. Zheleznov).

Or here's another. That evening, when Pugachev was taken away, the Kuznetsovs are sitting at home, having dinner. And suddenly the door opens and the merchant enters, says: "Bread and salt." The Kuznetsovs' spoons somehow fell out of their hands - they recognized them by their voice. And the merchant says: “I have come to reassure you, by the grace of God I will not be lost. And you live a good life." He said and he was. The Kuznetsovs ran out into the street, and his trace was gone, only the bell rang.

According to legend, Pugachev was seen more than once in the steppe - the Cossacks did not want to admit his death. Korolenko says that the cycle of these legends shows “what passionate love Yaik had for the image of his “runaway king”, which cost him so many tears, grief and blood.” “The steppe haze, a ghost - and a whole series of conquered fortresses and won battles ... For this, someone's hellish deceit and sedition were not enough. This required deep suffering and faith. And it was, really, all imbued with ignorance and superstition, which for a long time still lived in the dark masses, as these fantastic legends live in the Urals now. (Korolenko).

In "The Captain's Daughter" A. S. Pushkin refers to the events peasant uprising 1773-1774 headed by Emelyan Pugachev. In this story, Pushkin was able to paint a vivid picture of a spontaneous peasant uprising, to show it against a broad national and social background. At the same time, he held the belief that the story should have “ historical era, developed in fictional narrative”.
The leader of the uprising, Yemelyan Pugachev, is depicted by Pushkin not as a bloodthirsty killer, as historians of the 18th-19th centuries showed him, but as a talented and courageous people's leader. The natural mind, intelligence, energy, outstanding abilities of this man contributed to the fact that he led the peasant uprising. People from all over the country began to flock to him: Belogorsk Cossacks, and Bashkirs, and Tatars, and Chuvashs, and peasants from the Ural factories. They respected Pugachev, trusted him in everything.
Pugachev brutally cracks down on those whom he considers the oppressors of the peasants. For him, there are no good landowners and government representatives. In the face of the nobles, he sees only enemies. Therefore, he is so merciless to Captain Mironov and his subordinates, although they were kind people. But Pugachev also remembers the kindness that was once done to him. As a reward for a glass of vodka offered to the “counselor” during a snowstorm, and for a hare sheepskin coat, Grinev gets life. Three times Pyotr Grinev tempted fate, and three times Pugachev pardoned him. “The thought of him was inseparable in me with the thought of mercy,” says Grinev, “given to me by him in one of the terrible moments of his life, and of the deliverance of my bride ...” And indeed, Pugachev shows generosity when he releases Masha Mironova from Shvabrin's hands, despite the fact that she is the captain's daughter, and releases Grinev with her. At the same time, he punishes Shvabrin, saying: “Execute like this, execute like that, favor like that.”
When meeting Pugachev, Grinev is convinced that this is not at all the kind of person that the tsarist authorities considered him to be. Even at their first meeting, when Pugachev acts as a “counselor”, Grinev is struck by the composure of this person. Then Grinev sees the “counselor” as common man, whose appearance nevertheless seems to him “remarkable”: “He was about forty, medium height, thin and broad-shouldered. Gray hair appeared in his black beard; alive big eyes so they ran. His face had a rather pleasant, but picaresque expression, ”this is how he describes the appearance of the hero.
Pushkin portrays Emelyan Pugachev not only as the leader of the uprising, but also as a simple Cossack. Pugachev's speech is filled with proverbs, sayings, allegories, which a person from another environment cannot understand. He forces to call himself the tsar-father, because the people have always had faith in the “good tsar”. In his relations with his subordinates, there is complete democracy, there is no respect for rank, everyone can freely challenge the opinion of his “sovereign”. “My street is cramped; I have little will. My guys are smart. They are thieves. I have to keep my eyes open: at the first failure, they will redeem their neck with my head, ”Pugachev realizes bitterly, who is no longer happy with the authorities. The hero realizes that he is just an impostor. He feels his doom and lives only in hope for the future.
And yet, the main thing in the image of Emelyan Pugachev is greatness and heroism, which found expression in the symbolic meaning of the tale of the eagle and the raven. The hero believes that it is better to live a short but worthy life than to live three hundred years and eat carrion. He associates himself with the eagle, who lives “only thirty-three years”, but drinks “living blood”.
Emphasizing in Pugachev courage and heroism, intelligence and ingenuity, Pushkin shows in this man best features Russian national character. But Pushkin is far from idealizing Pugachev, the leader of the peasant uprising. Author " captain's daughter” prefers reforms to revolution, he does not accept bloodshed. That is why we read in his stories that have become widely famous words: “God forbid to see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless!” Considering the Pugachev uprising as nothing more than a senseless rebellion, the author, at the same time, did not set out to show the villainy of the Pugachevites in the story. He tried to recreate the history of the uprising and the personality of the peasant leader, and it should be noted that Pushkin masterfully realized this plan.