Yemelyan Pugachev

Pugachev, Emelian Ivanovich (c.1742-75), leader of the most dangerous peasant revolt in Russian history. A Don Cossack with charismatic gifts, Pugachev served in the Seven Years War and against the Turks. He deserted in 1771 and began wandering through southern Russia and the Urals. He was arrested in 1772 and 1773 but escaped both times. He then claimed to be the dead Tsar Peter III, who had freed the nobles from their state service obligations and, so his supporters assumed, would do the same for the peasantry. He attracted a following of peasants, Old Believers, Ural mineworkers, and non-Russians such as Bashkirs and Kalmyks. In August 1773 Pugachev formed a detachment of 300 cossacks from Yaitsk (later Ural'sk), which rapidly expanded to about 25, 000. Because the main Russian forces were fighting the Turks, Pugachev's insurgents were able to seize Kazan, Penza, and Saratov and besiege other towns. But he was defeated by Potemkin near Kazan in the summer of 1774 and fled to the Urals. His supporters then handed him over to the Russians, and he was executed in Moscow on 10 January 1775. The Pugachev rebellion was the setting for Pushkin's novel The Captain's Daughter.

— Christopher Bellamy

The Russian Cossack soldier Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev (1742-1775) led the peasant rebellion in Russia in 1773-1775.

Emelyan Pugachev, a Don Cossack, was born in the village of Zimoveiskaya. The main course of his life was influenced initially by the fact that, as a Don Cossack, he was subject, when of age, to duty in the Russian army. In 1770, during a Russo-Turkish conflict in which he was serving, he was given a temporary leave and, at its expiration, refused to return to his regiment. Arrested, he managed to escape, thus beginning his life as a strong-willed fugitive.

In the course of his subsequent wanderings Pugachev was struck by the bitter unrest he found among the lower classes in Russia. What he saw convinced him that the time was ripe for revolt, and being a rebel by nature and having a bent toward leadership, he took upon himself the task of directing a revolt. As a basis for appeal, he decided to assume the character of Czar Peter III, having observed that many credulous people distrusted the official report that Peter had died in 1762.

With about 80 Cossacks committed to his scheme, in September 1773 Pugachev proclaimed himself Peter III and called on the oppressed to follow him in an uprising against Catherine II (the Great). He began his campaign along the Yaik (now called the Ural) River, gathering followers among disgruntled Cossacks, fugitive serfs, released convicts, religious dissenters, Bashkirs, and Tatars. Although the force he assembled was neither well trained nor well disciplined, it was large enough to defeat local military units sent against it. To widen his campaign, Pugachev undertook the capture of Orenburg (Chkalov), the major center of government strength on the Yaik River, setting up headquarters and laying siege to the city. Meanwhile, news of the revolt prompted bloody uprisings against landlords and government officials along the Volga River and in the region east of it. Thousands left their homes to join the rebel army, and they increased its numbers to about 25, 000.

Late in 1773 Catherine II, judging the revolt dangerous enough to warrant her action, sent a large force to suppress it. Pugachev was compelled to end the siege of Orenburg, but he eluded capture by the government forces. Again he marshaled a sizable following and, in July 1774, was able to resume the offensive and capture the city of Kazan. At the same time, serf uprisings took place near Nizhni Novgorod (Gorki) only 275 miles east of Moscow.

Catherine, now deeply alarmed by the nearness of the revolt, sent new contingents against Pugachev. They succeeded in destroying most of his army, near Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd), but he once again evaded efforts to capture him. Still determined, Pugachev made his way to the Yaik Cossack region, hoping that Yaik and Don Cossacks would provide him with a new army. Instead of being given support, however, he was betrayed. A group of Cossacks opposed to his aims seized him and handed him over to the authorities.

Taken in chains to Moscow, Pugachev was tried and sentenced to death. On Jan. 10, 1775, he was beheaded and quartered before a large Moscow crowd.

Further Reading

The best account, in English, concerning Pugachev is in Philip Longworth, The Cossacks (1970). An excellent analysis by Marc Raeff of the causes of the Pugachev revolt is in Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene, eds., Preconditions of Revolution in Early Modern Europe (1971).

(c. 1742 - 1775), Russian cossack rebel and imperial impostor, leader of the Pugachevshchina.

Emelian Pugachev headed the mass uprising of 1773 - 1774 known as Pugachevshchina (loosely translated as "Pugachev's Dark Deeds"). The bloodiest rebellion against central state authority and serfdom between 1618 and the Revolutions of 1905 and 1917, it disrupted an immense territory and momentarily threatened the Muscovite heartland. Thousands of individuals from disparate social groups and ethnicities challenged Catherine II's legitimacy and aggravated international tension from prolonged Russo-Turkish hostilities. Many suspected upper-class, religious, or foreign inspiration behind the upheaval, widely reported by the European press. Particularly provocative was Pugachev's impersonation of Peter III (1728 - 1762), which recalled Catherine's usurpation of power.

The revolt originated among the Yaik (Ural) cossacks, a frontier "warrior democracy" that resisted pressure from state expansion. Disputes over the elected leadership led to government suppression of a cossack mutiny in January 1772, which left the community divided and resentful. Pugachev, a Don cossack fugitive, visited the area in late 1772. A typical primitive rebel, Pugachev was illiterate and his biography obscure. His imposture was not original; he was one of some seven pretenders since 1764. Shrewd, energetic, and experienced in military affairs, he was also charismatic. It is unclear whether he initiated renewed revolt or was persuaded to lead it by the cossacks.

About sixty rebels issued a first manifesto in late September 1773, presumably dictated by Pugachev or cossack scribes, calling on cossacks, Kalmyks, and Tatars to serve Peter III in pursuit of glory, land, and material reward. The rebels focused on frontier freedom or autonomy, but Peter III's name lent national stature to the burgeoning movement. Within weeks their forces exceeded two thousand besieging the fortress of Orenburg and spreading the revolt into the Ural Mountains with specific appeals to diverse social and ethnic groups. Turkic Bashkirs joined in force as the regional rebellion evolved into three chronological-territorial phases.

The Orenburg-Yaitsk phase lasted from October 1773 until April 1774, when the rebel sieges of Orenburg, Yaitsk, and Ufa were broken, Pugachev barely escaping. Shielded by spring roadlessness, the rebels replenished ranks while fleeing northward through the Urals. This second phase culminated in the plunder of Kazan on July 23 before the horde was defeated and scattered. With rebel whereabouts unknown, panic seized Moscow, but news of peace with the Turks soon allayed fears.

Pugachev fled southward down the Volga, exterminating the nobility and government officials - the third and final phase. This rampage sparked many local outbreaks sometimes called "Pugachevshchina without Pugachev." The main rebel force was decisively defeated south of Tsaritsyn on September 5. To save themselves, some cossacks turned Pugachev over to tsarist authorities at Yaitsk on September 26, 1774. After lengthy interrogation he was beheaded and then quartered in Moscow on January 21, 1775. To erase reminders of the revolt, Yaitsk, the river, the cossacks, and Pugachev's birthplace were all renamed, his wife and children exiled. Late in life Alexander Pushkin (1799 - 1837) popularized Pugachev in history and fiction. "The Captain's Daughter" became an instant classic, famously declaiming "God save us from seeing a Russian revolt, senseless and merciless." But agrarian anarchist dissidents found inspiration in Pugachev for grassroots rebellion. After 1917 the Soviet regime endorsed Pugachev's fame, recasting the revolt as a peasant war against feudal society and autocratic government.

Bibliography

Alexander, John T. (1969). Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial Russian Government and Pugachev's Revolt, 1773 - 1775. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Alexander, John T. (1973). Emperor of the Cossacks: Pugachev and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773 - 1775. Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press.

Pushkin, Alexander. (1983). "The Captain's Daughter" and "A History of Pugachev." In Alexander Pushkin: Complete Prose Fiction, ed. Paul Debreczeny. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Raeff, Marc. (1970). "Pugachev's Rebellion." In Preconditions for Revolution in Early Modern Europe, eds. Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

—JOHN T. ALEXANDER

Pugachev, Emelian Ivanovich (yĭmĭlyän' ēvä'nəvĭch pūgəchôf') , c.1742–75, Russian peasant leader, head of the peasant rebellion of 1773–74. A Don Cossack, he exploited a widespread peasant belief that Peter III had not actually been murdered. Claiming (1773) to be Peter III, he soon found himself at the head of an army and of a revolutionary movement. His followers—Cossacks, peasants, runaway serfs, Tatar bands, and serfs from the mines and factories—all belonged to the lower classes, whose rights and liberties had been increasingly curtailed in the past two centuries. Pugachev announced the abolition of serfdom. His army overran the middle and lower Volga districts and the Ural region and took Kazan and several fortresses, committing barbarous excesses and threatening the throne of Catherine II, who was waging war on the Ottoman Empire. However, the rebels lacked experienced leadership and were ultimately defeated. Pugachev was betrayed, taken to Moscow, and beheaded. As a result of the rebellion Catherine introduced the administrative reform (1775) that increased the central government's control over outlying areas and more firmly entrenched the institution of serfdom.

Bibliography

See A. Pushkin, The History of Pugachev (1983).

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)