In the center of the capital, on the main square of our country, there is a well-known monument created in 1818 by the sculptor IP Martos. It depicts the most worthy sons of Russia - Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who, at a difficult time for the Motherland, managed to organize and lead thousands of people's militia to fight the invaders. The events of those early years have become one of the glorious pages of our history.
Young and enterprising Nizhny Novgorod
When Kuzma Minin was born, it is not exactly known. It is generally accepted that this happened around 1570 in the Volga city of Balakhna. She preserved the history and names of his parents - Mikhail and Domniki. It is also known that they were we althy people, and when their son was eleven years old, they moved to Nizhny Novgorod, one of the largest cities on the Volga. In those days, it was customary for sons from an early age to help their fathers to the best of their ability to get bread. So is Kuzma.acquired the habit of work in his youth.
When he grew up, he opened his own business. Not far from the walls of the Kremlin, a slaughterhouse for cattle and a shop with meat goods, which belonged to Minin, appeared. Things went excellently, which made it possible to build their own house in the suburb of Blagoveshchenskaya Sloboda, where we althy people settled at that time. Soon a good bride was found - Tatyana Semyonovna, who, having become his wife, bore him two sons - Nefed and Leonty.
Summon Zemstvo headman
Among other townsfolk, Kuzma stood out for his mind, energy and obvious inclinations of a leader. Thanks to these qualities, the inhabitants of the settlement, in whom he enjoyed authority, elected Kuzma as their headman. But the abilities truly inherent in it were revealed in 1611, when a letter from Patriarch Hermogenes was delivered to Nizhny Novgorod, calling on all classes of the Russian people to rise up to fight the Polish invaders.
To discuss this message on the same day, the city council, which consisted of representatives of the city's leaders and the clergy, met. Kuzma Minin was also present. Immediately after the letter was read to the residents of Nizhny Novgorod, he addressed them with a fiery speech, urging them to stand up for their faith and the Fatherland and for this holy cause, spare neither life nor property.
Tough demands of war
The residents of the city readily responded to his call, but for such a large-scale undertaking, an energetic and business executive was needed, whoaccording to the forces it would be material to provide the army, and an experienced combat commander capable of taking command. They were Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who more than once showed himself to be an excellent governor. Now, on all issues related to human resources and the necessary funds, they turned directly to Minin.
Using the powers given to him and relying on the support of Pozharsky's troops, he decided that every resident of the city is obliged to contribute to the general fund an amount equal to a third of all his property. In exceptional cases, this amount was reduced to a fifth of the assessment of everything that the city dweller owned. Those who did not want to pay the due share were deprived of all civil rights and passed into the category of slaves, and all their property was completely subject to confiscation in favor of the militia. Such are the harsh laws of wartime, and Kuzma Minin had no right to show weakness.
The formation of the militia and the start of hostilities
Letters similar to the one received in Nizhny Novgorod were also sent to many other cities of Russia. Very soon, numerous detachments from other regions joined the Nizhny Novgorod residents, where the inhabitants responded to the call of the Patriarch with no less enthusiasm. As a result, at the end of March 1612, a multi-thousand militia was assembled on the Volga, led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky.
The populous commercial city of Yaroslavl became the base for the final formation of troops. Hence, in July 1612, the militia, in the amount of more than thirty thousand people,came out to intercept the forces of Hetman Jan Khodkiewicz, who was hurrying to help the Polish garrison blockaded in Moscow. The decisive battle followed on August 24 under the walls of the capital. The numerical superiority was on the side of the interventionists, but the morale of the militias deprived them of this advantage. Prince Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin led the course of the battle and instilled courage in the fighters with their personal examples.
Siege of the Kremlin
The victory was complete. The enemies fled, leaving rich trophies in the hands of the militia: tents, banners, timpani and four hundred wagons of food. In addition, many prisoners were taken. The hetman was driven back from Moscow, but detachments of Polish colonels Strus and Budila remained behind the Kremlin walls, who still had to be driven out of there. In addition, their accomplices, the boyars, who defected to the side of the invaders, also represented a certain force. Each of them had their own squads, which also had to fight.
The Poles besieged in the Kremlin had long run out of food, and they suffered a terrible famine. Knowing this, Kuzma Minin and Pozharsky, in order to avoid unnecessary victims, offered them to surrender, guaranteeing their lives, but were refused. On October 22 (November 1), the militias went on the attack and captured Kitay-gorod, but the resistance of the besieged continued. From hunger, cannibalism began in their ranks.
The capitulation of the Poles and the entry of the militias into the Kremlin
Prince Pozharsky softened his demands and suggested that the invaders leave the Kremlin with weapons and banners, leaving only the stolen valuables, but also forthe Poles disagreed. Only the traitors came out - the boyars with their families, whom Kuzma Minin, standing on the Stone Bridge at the gate, had to protect from the Cossacks, who were burning with the desire to immediately deal with the traitors.
Realizing their doom, on October 26 (November 5) the besieged surrendered and left the Kremlin. Their further fate was different. The regiment commanded by Budila was lucky: he ended up at the location of Pozharsky's militia, and he, having kept his word, saved their lives, subsequently deporting them to Nizhny Novgorod. But Strusya's regiment came to Governor Trubetskoy and was completely destroyed by his Cossacks.
The great day in the history of Russia was October 27 (November 6), 1612. After a prayer service performed by the Archimandrite of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Dionysius, the militia of Kuzma Minin and Pozharsky solemnly entered the Kremlin to the sound of bells. Unfortunately, Patriarch Hermogenes did not live to see this day, having raised the Russian people with his call to fight against the invaders. For refusing to obey their will, the Poles starved him to death in the basement of the Chudov Monastery.
Royal Grace
In July 1613, a significant event took place that marked the beginning of the three-hundred-year rule of the Romanov dynasty: their first representative, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, ascended the Russian throne. This happened on July 12, and the very next day, the founder of the monarchical dynasty - in gratitude for his patriotic deeds - granted Kuzma Minin the rank of a Duma nobleman. It was a worthy reward, since in those days this rank wasthird in "honor", second only to the boyar and okolnichy. Now the creator of the militia had the right to sit in the Boyar Duma, head orders or be a governor.
Since then, Minin has enjoyed the unlimited confidence of the sovereign. When in 1615 Mikhail Fedorovich and his inner circle went on a pilgrimage to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, he entrusted the protection of the capital to him, because he knew that, having freed Moscow from former enemies, this man would be able to protect her from future ones. And in the future, the sovereign often entrusted Minin with responsible assignments.
Death and the mystery of the hero's remains
Kuzma Mikhailovich Minin died on May 21, 1616 and was buried in the graveyard of the Pokhvalinskaya Church. In 1672, the first Nizhny Novgorod Metropolitan Filaret ordered that his ashes be transferred to the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral of the Kremlin in Nizhny Novgorod. In the thirties of the 19th century, the church, which had deteriorated by that time, was demolished, and in 1838 a new one was built aside from it.
The ashes of Minin and several other princes were transferred to his dungeon. A hundred years later, pursuing a policy of militant atheism, the Bolsheviks razed this temple to the ground, and the remains of the Nizhny Novgorod militia got into the local museum, and then were transferred to the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Cathedral in Nizhny Novgorod. It is customary to officially consider it the burial place of Kuzma Minin.
However, researchers have some doubts about this. There is an assumption that the ashes of a completely different person are stored in the Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk Cathedral, andthe remains of the illustrious hero still remain in the ground at the place where the ruined temple was. The building of the Nizhny Novgorod administration and the City Duma has now been built there, so it is no longer possible to carry out excavations and confirm or refute this hypothesis.
Gratitude of descendants
After the death of Minin, his son Nefed remained, who served in Moscow as a lawyer - a petty official in one of the sovereign's orders. Remembering the merits of his father, Mikhail Fedorovich secured his right to patrimonial ownership of the village of Bogorodskoye in the Nizhny Novgorod district with a special letter. He also owned a site on the territory of the Kremlin in Nizhny Novgorod.
Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky defended Russia, and grateful descendants in 1818 erected a monument to these true patriots of their Motherland in Moscow. Its author was the outstanding sculptor I. P. Martos, and it was created with voluntary donations from citizens. Initially, it was planned to erect a monument in Nizhny Novgorod - the cradle of the people's militia, but later they decided to move it to the capital, since the feat of these people in its scale goes far beyond the boundaries of one city.
