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The rumor spread like wildfire between the Urals and the steppe: Tsar Peter III.
(1728–1762), the legitimate ruler of the Russian lands, had mysteriously escaped the stalkings of his evil wife and successor Catherine II (1729–1796) and was now setting out to lead his loyal subjects to freedom.
The uprising that this news sparked in 1773 shook all of Russia and did not come to an end until 1775.
On January 21st (according to the Gregorian calendar) its author was executed in St. Petersburg.
His name was Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachev.
The man who pretended to be an escaped tsar was born on the Don around 1742 and had led an unsteady life.
As a soldier he fought against the Prussians in the Seven Years' War and against the Turks, joined the Cossacks and was arrested because he had campaigned for the transfer to the Ottoman Empire.
His successful escape laid the foundation for further ascent.
Because it strengthened his prestige among his Cossack comrades from Jaik, as the Ural river was called back then.
In addition, Pugachev now revealed his “true” identity: in July 1862, when his wife of German descent had ousted him from the throne with the help of her lovers and the guard troops, he, Tsar Peter III, had escaped the assassination attempt, had gone into hiding, and was finally his one to implement the reforms announced.
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The Tsar's charisma and promises quickly drove him to followers of various origins.
On the one hand, there were the Cossacks, who saw their freedoms between the South Urals and the Caspian Sea increasingly curtailed by state power.
The non-Russian peoples of the Bashkirs, Kazakhs and Kalmyks, who also felt disciplined by the expanding tsarist state and, like the Cossacks, represented a not inconsiderable military potential, had similar motives.
The hopes that the workers in the ore mines of the Ural Mountains had with the “good tsar” pointed in other directions.
They wanted to escape the appalling conditions to which they were subjected as dependent servants in the mines.
The numerous serf peasants who joined Pugachev also made it clear once again how bleak life was in the villages of the Russian Empire and what emotions the prospect of reforms aroused.
"We reward all former farmers with independence and freedom": Jemeljan Iwanowitsch Pugatschow (approx. 1742–1775)
Source: Wikipedia / Public Domain
Soon Pugachev commanded an army of 20,000 men, who also had some cannons and rifles at their disposal through the capture of smaller garrisons.
The war that raged between Russia and the Ottoman Empire and which tied up many of Katharina's troops ensured rapid success.
The tsarina also probably underestimated the anger that had built up on the geographical and social fringes of her empire.
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Pugachev was able to enclose the Orenburg garrison and destroy an expeditionary corps sent against him under General Vasily Kar before the city.
The victory drove him to more followers.
The insurgents soon controlled large areas between the Urals and the central Volga.
Pugachev did not turn against the tsarist autocracy, but copied it.
He set up a veritable counter-government with a war college, secretariat (after all, he could not write) and court titles which he bestowed on close followers who took the names of well-known noble families.
In doing so, he imitated “unintentionally parodic - what he considered imperial-monarchical,” writes the historian Manfred Hildermeier.
"Seize everyone, punish and hang up": Pugachev holds court - by Wassili Perow (1879)
Source: Wikipedia / Public Domain
Pugachev's manifestos, however, harbored social revolutionary potential: “We reward all former landowners with freedom and freedom, that they are forever Cossacks, and with the possession of their land without having to recruit or pay taxes ... But those who were former nobles, these opponents our government, which ruined the peasants, should all be seized, punished and hanged. "
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His people didn't need to be told twice.
"You can not imagine the blind devotion with which the whole people believe the promises of the villain," remarked a contemporary witness.
The contents of plundered vodka camps did the rest that the bitterness of the rebels discharged into orgies of violence, to which several thousand nobles, officers and clergy fell victim.
In the meantime, the government troops had succeeded in breaking open the siege ring around Orenburg.
But Pugachev escaped with a few hundred faithful.
Soon he had mobilized a new army with which he was preparing to march on Moscow.
The alarm bells were now ringing at Katharina's court.
In a cage, Pugachev was brought to Moscow like a wild animal
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
Since her generals had meanwhile brought the war against the Ottomans to a happy conclusion - in the Peace of Küçük Kaynarca Russia won the Caucasus foothills and the south of Ukraine - the Tsarina was now able to put enough troops on the march to put down the uprising.
Equipped with special powers, General Pyotr Panin advanced against Pugachev.
His army was destroyed on August 24 at Chorny Jar.
The criminal court was terrible.
The murderers of officers should have their hands and feet, and finally their heads cut off.
From villages that refused to extradite the guilty, "every hundredth man should be elected by lot and hung by the rib," said Panin.
The rib was a special gallows with an extended crossbeam.
The victims were suspended from a metal hook that was pulled through their ribs.
Catherine II, the great (1729–1796), Tsarina of Russia, probably instructed the executioner
Source: picture alliance / akg-images /
Katharina, who not only feared for her reputation as an enlightened ruler (who corresponded with Voltaire and Diderot), but was probably really appalled, stepped in and drastically reduced the death penalty, most of the 20,000 convicted suffered mutilations or exile.
Even in the trial of Pugachev, which his Jaik Cossacks had ultimately handed over and who had been brought to Moscow in a cage, she was somewhat lenient.
Her fake husband was sentenced to death, but he was spared torture.
The verdict was "quartered", but the evisceration while still alive, which in England was also "high treason", should not be done.
But even this nakedness Katharina did not want to show herself.
When Pugachev climbed onto the scaffold at the foot of the Kremlin on January 21, 1775, "smeared completely with black" on a "kind of dung cart", a huge crowd awaited the bloody spectacle.
But the executioner did something "strange and unexpected," wrote one observer.
Instead of dividing his victim into four, he cut off his head and then his hands and feet.
Then the pieces were put on a pole and the tongue and nose of the remaining delinquents who escaped the death penalty were severed.
The audience was deprived of good entertainment and was outraged.
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The Jaik River was renamed the Urals, but the new name could not prevent Pugachev from continuing to circulate as a ghost.
Katharina set in motion extensive reforms in administration, justice and provinces, which gave Russia a modern framework.
But the fear of a new peasant uprising let them leave the basic evil of their country untouched: the serfdom remained.
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