Stenka Razin

June 6] 1671), known as Stenka Razin (Сте́нька [ˈsʲtʲenʲkə]),[a] was a Don Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and tsarist bureaucracy in southern Russia in 1670–1671.[1] Razin's father, Timofey Razya, supposedly came from a suburb of Voronezh, a city near Russia's steppe frontier, called the Wild Fields.In one document, Razin was referred to as a tuma Cossack which means "half-blood", leading to a hypothesis that his mother was a captured "Turkish" (turchanka) or Crimean Tatar[3] woman.Razin was first mentioned in historical sources in 1652, when he asked for permission to go on a long-distance pilgrimage to the great Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea.After that, all trace of him was lost for six years, after which he reappeared as the leader of a robber community established at Panshinskoye, among the marshes between the Tishina and Ilovlya rivers, whence he levied tribute from all vessels passing up and down the Volga.[citation needed] In 1665, his elder brother, Ivan, was executed by order of Yuri Dolgorukov [ru] for unauthorized desertion from the war with the Poles.They were also joined by many others who were disaffected with the Russian government, including people of the lower classes, as well as representatives of non-Russian ethnic groups such as Kalmyks, that were being oppressed at the time.At the beginning of 1668, he defeated the voivode Yakov Bezobrazov, sent against him from Astrakhan, and in the spring embarked on a predatory expedition into Daghestan and Persia, which lasted for eighteen months.Cossacks supported the tsar in that they worked for him[13][need quotation to verify] as contracted military forces - just as they had previously served the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.When he encountered a group of political prisoners being transported by the tsar's representatives on his way from the Don to the Volga, Razin reportedly said, "I shall not force you to join me, but whoever chooses to come with me will be a free Cossack.Failing to capture the well-defended fortress port of Derbent in present-day Dagestan, his forces moved south to attack the small port of Badkuba (present Baku) located on the Absheron Peninsula in present-day Azerbaijan, but at Rasht (in the southwest Caspian Sea in modern Iran) the Persians killed roughly 400 Cossacks in a surprise attack.In August 1669, he reappeared at Astrakhan and accepted a fresh offer of pardon from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich there; the common people were fascinated by his adventures.The lawless Russian border region of Astrakhan, where the whole atmosphere was predatory and many people were still nomadic, was the natural milieu for such a rebellion as Razin's.Astrakhan, Russia's wealthy "window on the East", occupied a strategically important location at the mouth of the Volga River on the shore of the Caspian Sea.[19] Razin plundered the city - despite its location on a strongly fortified island and the stone walls and brass cannons that surrounded the central citadel.Saratov and Samara were captured, but Simbirsk defied all efforts, and after two bloody encounters close at hand on the banks of the Sviyaga River ( 1 and 4 October), Razin was ultimately routed by the army of Yuri Baryatinsky and fled down the Volga, leaving the bulk of his followers to be extirpated by the victors.Razin proclaimed that his object was to root out the boyars and all officials, to level all ranks and dignities, and establish Cossackdom, with its corollary of absolute equality, throughout Russia.Even his own settlements at Saratov and Samara refused to open their gates to him, and the Don Cossacks, hearing that the Patriarch had anathematized Razin, also declared against him.They were given over to Tsarist officials in Moscow, and on 16 June 1671, following the announcement of the verdict against him, Stepan Razin was quartered on the scaffold on Red Square.[22] A sentence of death was read aloud: Razin listened to this calmly, then turned to the church, bowed in three directions, passing the Kremlin and the tsar and said: "Forgive me."On the other hand, as Avrich asserts, "[Razin's revolt] awakened, however dimly, the social consciousness of the poor, gave them a new sense of power, and made the upper class tremble for their lives and possessions."[24] At the time of the Russian Civil War, the famous writer and White emigre Ivan Bunin compared Razin to Bolshevik leaders, writing "Good God!Hearing these speeches, Razin throws the "princess" into the water as a gift to the Volga river, and continues the drunken fun with his men.На переднем Стенька Разин, Обнявшись, сидит с княжной, Свадьбу новую справляет, Сам весёлый и хмельной.Drunk, he holds a marriage revel, Clasping close his fair young bride Позади их слышен ропот: Нас на бабу променял!Мощным взмахом поднимает Он красавицу княжну И за борт её бросает В набежавшую волну.119; The Execution of Stepan Razin (1964), a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and a novel, I Have Come To Give You Freedom [ru], (Я пришёл дать вам волю) by Vasily Shukshin.