The seventeenth century was called “rebellious” in Russian historical science, and for good reason: flashes of bloody events colored the entire course of the seventeenth century, and this turbulent time for the country was opened by the Cotton uprising.
A Brief History of the Uprising
The turn of the 16th-17th centuries became a test of strength for Russia, the state in some periods was on the verge of losing sovereignty. The clashes of interests of social groups occupying different positions in society reached the point of irreconcilable destruction of each other. The current political situation in Russia should also be attributed to the purely socio-economic reasons for such a violent discontent of the lower classes. Quite recently, the cruel and merciless autocrat Ivan the Terrible died, whose oprichnina policy caused a muffled murmur from all segments of the population. The death of the king, on the one hand, caused a sigh of relief, and on the other hand, plunged the country into decades of the Time of Troubles. The fact is that the children of Ivan IV did not differ in he alth (such was Fedor Ivanovich, who died shortly after his father). The last remaining offspring of the once mighty family of Rurikovich was a minor, and therefore could not rule, exceptHe also died under mysterious circumstances. Here, the noble boyar family of the Godunovs comes to the forefront of politics, who took the throne, arguing their act by kinship with the last tsar.
Reason for the uprising
However, the new sovereign was disastrously unlucky. Of course, much of what happened in the first years of Boris's reign was a consequence of the previous reign. Gradually, one layered on the other and caused an unprecedented rise in popular indignation. One of its manifestations was the uprising of Cotton. The reasons for this event lay in the policy of oppression and further enslavement of the peasants. Many of them escaped from the estates of the landowners, thus, an increasing number of the protest population accumulated in the southeast of the country. One of the first clear signals to the new government can be considered 1602, when large-scale robberies led to the loss of control of some territories. I had to send military teams to suppress them. In 1602-1603. as a result of early frosts, mass famine set in, giving rise to poverty and rampant robbery. At the end of the summer of 1603, one of the largest riots of the first third of the 17th century broke out, known in history as the Cotton Rebellion.
Progress of the uprising
The most important highway connecting the central and western parts of the country, the Smolensk road, turned out to be completely paralyzed. Detachments of runaway serfs under the command of Khlopko Kosolap acted here. The authorities, who initially did not attach much importance to this, soon realized their mistake. Large military forces had to be used against the rebels; on the orders of Boris Godunov, a regiment of Moscow archers led by the okolnichi I. F. Basmanov. The uprising led by Khlopko covered more and more new territories, it is noteworthy that they did not put forward political and economic demands, but purposefully and with great cruelty engaged in ordinary robbery and robbery. The royal voivode treated the combat capabilities of runaway serfs and their leader with disdain, for which he soon paid the price. In the battle that took place, which was long and fierce, Basmanov was mortally wounded.
Results of the uprising
After the death of the commander of the tsarist troops, the confrontation did not stop, but flared up with renewed vigor. The course of the battle more than once forced the archers to retreat. However, combat training and equipment played their role, by the end of the day the rebels could no longer hold back the pressure of government detachments and began to retreat, but, unfamiliar with military tactics, they opened their rear, which their opponents took advantage of. The wholesale destruction of the rebels began; even those serfs who did not resist and were taken prisoner were soon executed without any trial or investigation. The leader of the uprising himself was seriously wounded and taken prisoner by the tsarist troops. His fate was sealed. Khlopko was executed in Moscow.
Forerunner of the civil war?
RebellionCotton in 1603 showed the contradictions that reigned in Russian society. Even in the privileged part of it there was no unity about the future of the country. Many noble ranks and clans of the state were downright hostile to the new tsar, considering him a usurper and murderer of Dmitry Uglichsky. Such disagreements could not but affect the lower classes, for the conductors of public opinion at that time were the boyars and nobles, and the lack of solidarity among them caused various social indignations. Many researchers consider the Time of Troubles to be the first civil war, arguing that all strata of the then Russian society took part in the events mentioned to one degree or another. A kind of pioneer in this matter was the uprising of Cotton, which preceded a whole series of bloody deeds.
