Stenka Razin

Stepan Timofeyevich Razin, often called Stenka Razin, was a Don Cossack who, between 1670 and 1671, commanded a large rebellion in southern Russia aimed at the nobility and the tsar’s officials. Razin’s father, Timofey Razya, is thought to have come from near Voronezh, a city on the edge of Russia’s steppe frontier known as the Wild Fields. Until 1667, Razin’s uncle and grandmother lived in the village of New Usman (or Usman’ Sobakina), about 8 kilometers from Voronezh. There is no consensus on who Razin’s mother was.

Early life

One document calls him a tuma Cossack—meaning “half-blood”—which has led some to believe his mother was a captured Turkish or Crimean Tatar woman. However, “upper Cossacks” also used tuma as a slur for all “lower Cossacks,” regardless of ancestry. Another idea comes from his godmother, Matrena Govorukha. Tradition holds that a godmother is related to the birth mother, and Govorukha lived in the town of .

The first historical mention of Razin comes from 1652, when he sought permission for a long pilgrimage to the Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea. In 1661, he appears as part of a Don Cossack diplomatic mission to the Kalmyks. Then he vanishes from records for six years.

When he reappears, he is leading a robber community at Panshinskoye, in the marshes between the Tishina and Ilovlya rivers, where he forced passing ships on the Volga to pay tribute. In 1665, his older brother Ivan was executed by order of for deserting the war against the Poles without permission. Russia’s prolonged wars with Poland (1654–1667) and Sweden (1656–1658) weighed heavily on the people. Taxes rose, and conscription increased.

Many peasants fled south to escape these burdens and joined Razin’s Cossack bands. They were joined by others disaffected with the government, including lower-class people and non-Russian groups like the Kalmyks, who were also oppressed. Razin’s first major act was destroying a large naval convoy made up of treasury barges and vessels belonging to the Patriarch and wealthy Moscow merchants. He then sailed down the Volga with 35 ships, capturing key forts and devastating the countryside.

Background

In early 1668, he defeated the voivode Yakov Bezobrazov, who had been sent from Astrakhan to stop him. That spring, Razin set off on an eighteen-month raiding expedition into Dagestan and Persia. The Time of Troubles (1598–1613) had been a harsh period for Russia. The direct male line of the Rurik dynasty ended in 1598, and the Romanov dynasty—which would rule until the February Revolution of 1917—only began in 1613.

Under Tsar Michael (1613–1645) and his son Alexis (1645–1676), the tsar’s power grew as a way to stabilize the country after the chaos. As a result, the Zemsky Sobor and the boyar council lost influence. Russia went from fifteen years of near anarchy to strong, centralizing autocrats. A deep divide also existed between peasants and nobles.

Changes in peasant status, including the formalization of serfdom in the Law Code of 1649, fueled unrest. The Don Cossacks—a mostly lower-class group living independently near the Don River, paid by the tsar to guard Russia’s southern borders—led Razin’s rebellion. Historian Paul Avrich describes the revolt as a “curious mixture of brigandage and revolt,” like other popular uprisings of the time. Razin rebelled against the “traitor-boyars,” not the tsar.

Departure from the Don

The Cossacks supported the tsar as contracted military forces, just as they had once served the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1667, Razin gathered a small group of Cossacks and left the Don for the Caspian Sea. He planned to set up a base at Yaitsk (now Oral, Kazakhstan) and plunder nearby villages.

Moscow learned of his plans and tried to stop him. As Razin traveled down the Volga toward Tsaritsyn, the voivodes of Astrakhan warned the local governor, Andrei Unkovsky, of Razin’s approach and advised him to keep the Cossacks out of the town. Unkovsky tried to negotiate, but Razin threatened to burn Tsaritsyn if he interfered. When Razin met a group of political prisoners being moved by the tsar’s agents, he reportedly said, “I shall not force you to join me, but whoever chooses to come with me will be a free Cossack.

I have come to fight only the boyars and the wealthy lords. As for the poor and common folk, I shall treat them as brothers.” When Razin sailed past Tsaritsyn, Unkovsky did not attack—possibly because he saw Razin as a threat, or because the town’s guards sympathized with the Cossacks. This incident gave Razin a reputation as an “invincible warrior endowed with supernatural powers.” He continued down the Volga into the Caspian, defeating several detachments of streltsy (musketeers). In July 1667, Razin captured Yaitsk by disguising himself and some companions as pilgrims coming to pray at the cathedral.