Emelyan Pugachev is a very interesting historical figure. A brief biography of him is presented in this article.
Life path. Getting Started
He was born into a Cossack family in 1740 or 1742 (opinions differ on this) in the village of Zimoveyskaya. The biography of Pugachev Emelyan is very interesting to study, because he was the leader of the largest anti-serfdom uprising in the Russian Empire, called the Peasant War.
Pugachev took part in the Seven Years (1760-1762) and Russian-Turkish (1768-1770) wars. In 1770 he was promoted to cornet. The biography of Pugachev Emelyan says that the following year he fled from service to the North Caucasus and joined the Terek army there. In 1772 he was arrested in Mozdok. However, Pugachev managed to escape. Emelyan spent the spring and summer of the same year wandering around the Old Believer villages near Gomel and Chernigov, posing asschismatic. In autumn, he settled with the Trans-Volga Old Believers, and then visited the Yaik town, where he persuaded the Cossacks to flee to the free territories of the Trans-Kuban region.
The biography of Pugachev Emelyan tells that in 1773 he was arrested on a denunciation and brought to Kazan, where he was imprisoned. Pugachev was accused of high treason. This case was considered in the Secret Expedition of the Senate in St. Petersburg. Pugachev was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Trans-Ural city of Pelym. Tsarina Catherine II approved the verdict. However, the document with the verdict arrived in Kazan three days after Yemelyan's flight. The search was not successful.
The biography of Pugachev Emelyan shows that in May 1773 he appeared in the villages of the Yaik Cossacks, and already in August he gathered a Cossack detachment, which included participants in the suppressed rebellion (1772). It was decided to start a new uprising in the expectation that it would be supported by the serfs. This performance was headed by Pugachev Emelyan Ivanovich. His biography says that he called himself the murdered Emperor Peter III and issued a manifesto in which he endowed the Kalmyks, Cossacks and Tatars who served in the army with all sorts of liberties and privileges.
However, the rebels did not have a well-thought-out program, and views on the goals of the uprising were limited to the possibility of creating a Cossack-peasant state with a just king at the head. Military operations were opened by a campaign against Orenburg. In December 1773, Pugachev's army already numbered 86 guns and 25 thousand people. The management of the army was carried out by themilitary board. She also served as a political center. The basis of the army was the Cossacks.
Fatal Mistakes
Although the course of the uprising showed that Pugachev had organizational skills and military talent, he made serious miscalculations. Instead of going on a campaign in the Volga region, which was ready to flare up like gunpowder, he was engaged in the siege of Orenburg and other fortresses. Because of this, Pugachev narrowed the area of speech and missed the time that was needed to consolidate the forces of the rebels. Although the uprising developed successfully, and most of the Orenburg region, the counties of the Tobolsk and Kazan provinces were captured, however, the government did not doze off.
At the end of the Russo-Turkish war, hardened in heavy battles and disciplined regular units of the Russian army were released. The defeat of the rebels was inevitable. The biography of Pugachev Emelyan says that after a series of losing battles, he was betrayed to the tsarist authorities by conspirators from his own entourage. The Senate sentenced the leader of the uprising and four of his closest associates to death. Pugachev was executed on January 10, 1775 on Bolotnaya Square (Moscow).
