Stenka Razin

Cossack leader

• Born: c. 1630
• Birthplace: Zimoveyskaya-na-Dona, Russia
• Died: June 16, 1671
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Don Cossack leader Stenka Razin, who led a revolt on behalf of Russian serfs in one of the largest and most brutal rebellions in Russian history, turned his back on traditional military service by leading a large band of pirates on raids in the Caspian Sea and threatening the grand duchy of Muscovy.

Early Life

Stenka Razin (STYEHN-kah RAH-zyihn) was born into a wealthy, landed Cossack family living near one of the Cossack capitals, Cherkassk. The town lies on the lowest reaches of the Don River near its mouth on the Black Sea, and thus Razin’s people were known as the Don Host of Cossacks. His godfather was rich and destined to become ataman, or leader, of the Don Cossacks.

The Cossacks are believed to be descendants of escaped Russian serfs as well as of Tatars, Turkic-speaking peoples of southeastern Europe and Central Asia. Expert horsemen and fearsome warriors, the Cossacks placed enormous value on their independence, refusing to cultivate their land because they believed that a sedentary life would lead to their subjugation. By the mid-seventeenth century, they had begun to serve as paid mercenaries of the grand duchy of Muscovy, the Russian state lying to the north, protecting it from the hordes of warlike nomads threatening it from the south and the east.

As befits a future Cossack leader, young Razin visited Moscow, the capital of the grand duchy, in 1652, and made a pilgrimage to the monastery of Solovetsky on an island in the White Sea (northernmost Russia). In 1658, he again visited Moscow, this time as a member of a delegation securing arms and negotiating the Cossacks’ wages. In 1661, he concluded an alliance with the nomadic Kalmyks against the Nogai tribe of Tatars, and, in 1663, he led an expedition against a war party of Crimean Tatars—an expedition that resulted in the capture of more than two thousand horses and sheep and the release of 350 slaves into the Cossack fold.

At this stage in his life, Razin seemed poised to join the ranks of his godfather as a Cossack leader, but events were to turn him first into a pirate and then into the instigator of a massive popular revolt against the Russians.

Life’s Work

A number of events seem to have contributed to Razin’s turnaround. The first was the death of his brother Ivan, who had served with the Russians but who was hanged by them on charges of desertion in 1665. Other events were less personal in nature.

Increasingly harsh Russian laws were turning free peasants into serfs, virtual slaves who were tied to the land that they worked and who had no hope of bettering their lot. By tradition, fugitives reaching Cossack territory were safe from pursuers, and thus the Cossacks’ territory was burgeoning with families and often entire villages of escaped serfs. A ruinous war between Muscovy and the Polish Empire to the west was creating even more refugees. However, the newcomers—known as the “naked ones”—were seldom able to support themselves and frequently turned to piracy and brigandage. In addition to creating internal problems, such actions exacerbated relations between Muscovy and the established Cossacks, or “householders,” who depended upon Russian arms and goodwill in fighting the Tatars.

The Cossacks also found themselves at odds with their Turkish neighbors to the south. The Turks had blockaded the mouth of the Don River with towers and heavy chains in 1660 and thus deprived the “new” and impoverished Cossacks of opportunities to prey upon shipping on the Black Sea.

Impelled by these events, Stenka Razin joined the ranks of the newcomers and set out with a raiding party of between six hundred and eight hundred men in the spring of 1667. With access to the Black Sea blocked, he and his men dragged their boats, barges, and supplies the short distance from the Don to the Volga River. Sailing toward the southeast, they then attacked Russian ships on the lower reaches of the Volga and, avoiding the heavily armed city of Astrakhan by sailing down a side channel, entered the Caspian Sea in 1668. Here they raided and pillaged Russian, Turkish, and Persian settlements indiscriminately.

Razin quickly became become a popular hero, attracting thousands of enthusiastic followers from the disaffected peoples of the region and from the ranks of other Cossack hosts. Now, however, his career took another turn, one distinctly political in nature. In the spring of 1670, Razin and his men began an ascent of the Volga toward Muscovy. The Cossacks soon were threatening their traditional masters, but Razin spoke in guarded terms of ridding the Russian state of its noble, landowning class, the boyars, whom he accused of betraying the Russian czar.

The residents of the Volga cities of Astrakhan, Tsaritsyn(now Volgograd), Saratov, and Samara (Kuybyshev) welcomed the rebels, and in no time the lands bordering the middle stretches of the Volga were in open if chaotic revolt. It has been estimated that Razin commanded 250,000 troops at this point, but he proved unable to meld them into an effective army. The garrison at Simbirsk (Ulianovsk), 485 miles (780 kilometers) east of Moscow, had been reinforced by a large contingent of Russian troops, and it refused to capitulate to Razin’s ragtag forces. Razin made several unsuccessful assaults and ultimately was forced to retreat southward in the fall of 1670, wounded and defeated.

The comfort and security of the settled, landowning Cossacks were now at risk. Upon Razin’s return to his Don homeland, he was betrayed by his own godfather and delivered, along with his brother, to the Russians, who executed him on June 16, 1671.

Significance

Stenka Razin’s revolt highlighted the desperate situation of Russian serfs and the growing gap between rich and poor, but it was a terrible disaster for his followers and sympathizers. The Russians tortured and executed tens of thousands of people in the wake of the revolt, and they laid waste to the Volga region that was at the heart of the revolt.

By the time of his death, Razin already had entered Russian and Cossack folklore, and it is here that his impact has been greatest. Razin has been celebrated in legend, art, and song as the legendary outlaw “Robin Hood” has been by the English, as both a swashbuckling hero (particularly for his exploits as a pirate) and as a symbol of the aspirations of the downtrodden. The stirring symphonic poemStenka Razin (1885) by Russian composer Aleksandr Konstantinovich Glazunov (1865-1936) is a musical memorial to his turbulent life.

Bibliography

Avrich, Paul. Russian Rebels, 1600-1800. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. A survey of the major peasant revolts of the period, including those led by Razin. Includes illustrations and a short bibliography.

Field, Cecil. The Great Cossack: The Rebellion of Sten’ka Razin Against Alexis Michaelovitch, Tsar of All the Russias. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1947. A standard biography, although it lacks documentation and an index. Includes illustrations and a short bibliography.

Longworth, Philip. The Cossacks. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970. A popular, well-documented account, with one chapter devoted to Razin. Includes black-and-white illustrations, maps, notes, and a substantial bibliography.

Soloviev, Sergei M. The Tsar and the Patriarch: Stenka Razin Revolts on the Don, 1662-1675. Gulf Breeze, Fla.: Academic International, 2000. Volume 21 of Soloviev’s History of Russia, originally published in Russian (1959-1966). A standard if somewhat romanticized account of the times, supplemented with maps, black-and-white illustrations, an appendix, and substantial notes.

Ure, John. The Cossacks: An Illustrated History. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 2002. A comprehensive survey for the general reader, with an entire chapter devoted to Razin. Illustrations (many in color), maps, selected bibliography.

Vernadsky, George. The Tsardom of Moscow, 1547-1682. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969. Volume 5 of Vernadsky’s A History of Russia. A standard history by a Russian-born, American historian, supplemented with maps, an extensive bibliography, and a glossary of Russian terms.