Emelyan Ivanovich Pugachev was a Don Cossack who went down in history as the leader of the Peasant War, which took place in Russia from 1773 to 1775. He took advantage of persistent rumors circulating at that time that Emperor Peter III was supposedly alive, but illegally removed from power by Catherine II and her lover Grigory Orlov. Pugachev turned out to be the most successful of all the impostors posing as monarchs.
Rebel Leader Plans
In the battle that took place at the Solenikova gang in late August 1774, the rebels suffered a crushing defeat. The remnants of their troops moved south-east along the Volga. On the evening of August 25, before reaching the Black Yar, they managed to cross first from the right bank of the river to one of the islands, and then from it to the opposite side. Pugachev led the remnants of his army to the east, crossed the Akhtuba River, on the left bank of which he convened a meeting. It was decided on further actions.
The rebel leader offered several withdrawal options. The first of them is to step down the Volga and go to the Caspian Sea, and then make a roundabout way to Ukraine and join the Zaporozhye Cossacks. The second option concerned flight to Bashkiria or Siberia.
Betrayal
However, when planning the escape route, Emelian Ivanovich Pugachev did not realize that at that time a conspiracy had matured behind him, in which Cossack colonels who had decided to betray him participated. His closest associates decided to extradite him to the authorities, and in return receive a pardon for himself from the government.
The plot was attended by F.F. Chumakov, I.P. Fedulev, I.A. Tvorogov, and about twenty other Yaitsky Cossacks. They categorically did not agree with any of Pugachev’s plans and put forward a counter proposal to go towards Uzen. To do this, they chose the district route and on September 8 arrived at the place. Seizing the moment when the main troops of the Cossacks were in the distance, the conspirators pounced on Pugachev. On the way to Yaitsky town, he twice tried to escape, but to no avail. Chumakov and Cottage Cheese, who drove forward, ran into a search detachment commanded by the centurion Kharchev. He brought the rebel to Yaitsky town.
So Emelyan Pugachev was caught. The peasant war, led by this outstanding man, soon ended, but Suvorov and Panin for a long time had to restrain troubled provinces, establishing the former power in them.
Consequence
The first interrogation of Emelyan Pugachev was carried out on September 15 in the Yaitsky town. The investigation was conducted by Mavrin, and first of all, he found out all the details of the biography of the detainee. Later in his report to Major General Potemkin, he wrote that Pugachev was calm and restrained. Three days later, Lieutenant General Suvorov arrived to interrogate the impostor, who personally conducted an inquiry. After that, the arrested was escorted to Simbirsk. For its transportation, a special cage was made, mounted on a two-wheeled cart.
In Simbirsk, from October 2 to 6, Pugachev was not only interrogated, but also used to torture him. He had to slander himself and his associates. On October 26, Pugachev was sent to Moscow under heavy guard. Upon arrival in the capital, he was kept in the basement of the building where the Mint was located. Other participants in the uprising were brought with him. On December 30, the first court hearing took place in the Throne Hall of the Kremlin. The next day, Pugachev was brought here, who, kneeling, answered questions, after which he heard a court decision. The sentence was severe: the perpetrator was first quartered, his head chopped off, and then parts of the body would be transported to different parts of the city and burned.
Last preparations
The date of execution of Pugachev was set for January 10, 1775. In the morning, the clergyman of the Kazan Cathedral, Archpriest Theodore, who was supposed to take the death sentence, was sent to him in prison. After that, the convoy led a rebel shackled in shackles into the courtyard and put him in a sled. Two priests rode with him, who, on the way, persuaded him to repent of their deeds.
Such an extraordinary event as the execution of Pugachev forced a huge number of people to gather in Bolotnaya Square long before dawn. The scaffold itself was pre-cordoned off by police units, as well as infantry regiments sent to them in reinforcements. They with great difficulty restrained the incredible pressure of the crowd. The people filled not only the entire square, but also the streets adjoining it. People even sat on the roofs of surrounding houses and churches.
Pugachev's behavior on execution
When the string of sleds with the escort passed the Resurrection Bridge, Pugachev got up and bowed in all directions. So he said goodbye to the people. The sleigh with the prisoners drove into the square and stopped at the scaffold itself. Emelyana Pugacheva, along with Athanasius Perfiliev, was brought to the platform. They were followed by several priests, bailiffs, judicial officials and executioners.
They began to read out the verdict, during which the main rebel was baptized from time to time and quietly said prayers. After that, the priest blessed the condemned to death and said a few comforting words. Then Pugachev uttered his last sentence, beginning with the words: “Forgive me, Orthodox people ...”, and at that time he bowed down to the earth and baptized tirelessly, turning his eyes to the Kremlin cathedrals.
Further events unfolded quite quickly. Pugachev’s execution began with the shackles removed from the convict and the clothes ripped off, and a minute later his executioner was holding his bloodied head by the hair in his hands.
Memoirs of Eyewitnesses
The fabulous poet of that era, Ivan Dmitriev, like most Moscow nobles, was not far from the scaffold and could see in detail how Pugachev was executed. Despite the fact that the main rebel had a reputation as a formidable robber, the writer in his face did not notice anything ferocious or atrocious. He described him as an ordinary person of about forty, of medium height, with a dark complexion and a wedge-shaped beard. Outwardly, he was completely nothing like Emperor Peter III, and it was amazing how the people could take one for the other.
Another eyewitness to those events, a scientist, writer and philosopher Andrei Timofeevich Bolotov, noticed a strange deviation in the execution procedure. According to the verdict, Emelyan Pugachev was to be quartered, i.e., first cut off his hands and feet, and only then cut his head. However, the executioner did the opposite. Chief Police Officer Arkharov was very perplexed and scolded the executioner for such a mistake. As a result, the convict’s arms and legs were cut off after his death.
The mercy of Empress Catherine II
Was such an executioner's oversight accidental, or did he do it on purpose? A. S. Pushkin wrote about this in his book “The History of the Pugachevsky Revolt”. Here the poet referred to the letter of the empress to Prince Volkonsky, where it was said that her philanthropy does not allow to act cruelly even with criminals. Therefore, before Pugachev was to be executed, Catherine allegedly verbally passed through the chief police officer Arkharov a secret instruction to the executioner that he first cut off Emelyana Pugachev’s head, and then quartered. An interesting fact is that the empress allegedly strictly forbade mentioning this anywhere.
It is not known for sure whether such an indication of Catherine II actually existed, but more official quarters in Russia were not carried out. In addition, the public execution of Pugachev on Bolotnaya Square was also the last. According to the verdict, his head was put on a stake and put on public display, and the severed parts of the body were transported to different parts of the city and burned a day later.
The results of the Peasant War
So the rebellion, once raised by a bunch of obstinate Cossacks, led by Emelyan Pugachev, ended. In the history of Russia, this Peasant War left its deepest mark, since it affected most of the country, having swept from Siberia to Moscow, as well as from the Kuban to Murom.
After the completion of the Pugachevsky rebellion, on the orders of Empress Catherine II, a manifesto was announced, which stated that this rebellion should be betrayed "to eternal oblivion." And in order to destroy at least the slightest memory of this bloody era, she ordered to rename the rebellious Yaitsky town in Uralsk.