An uprising (revolt) of peasants under the leadership of Khlopko (Khlopko, Khlopok, Khlop) at the beginning of the Time of Troubles.
Cotton Crookshanks was born in 1567. The Great Famine of 1601 - 1603 gave rise to poverty and unrest. The uprising was accompanied by mass escapes of serfs and peasants, who united into “robbery” detachments in nineteen western, central and southern districts of the country. The main forces of the rebels were heading towards Moscow, but were defeated on September 9, 1603 by the tsarist army under the command of the okolnichy I.F. Basmanov, who was killed in this battle. Khlopko himself was seriously wounded, captured and, after a thorough investigation, executed in Moscow. Some of the rebels fled to Ukraine. By decree of Tsar Boris Godunov, a thorough investigation into the circumstances of the uprising was carried out, since among the rebels there were servants of the disgraced boyars. Some historians consider the Khlopko uprising to be the first stage of Bolotnikov's peasant war.
Khlopko's uprising.
The name of the volost "Komaritskaya" was given to it at a time when it was under the rule of the Lithuanian and Polish kings, who owned it from the half of the 14th to the end of the 16th century. It was their personal estate, the income from which went to their own “mosquito”, or cell. When the volost passed from Lithuania to the Russian state, it also fell into the palace department. According to D. Svyatsky, the Komaritsky volost, in addition to the Sevsky district, also included most of the Dmitrievsky district of the Kursk province to the border running from Kalinovka to Gremyachee and Dmitriev, and part of the Trubchevsky district. Tsar Boris was known in the Komaritsa volost under the name “his master,” about whom it was disrespectfully sung in the famous “Komaritskaya” song that his serf “does not want to serve his master.” This song was probably created during large popular uprisings, when the Komaritsa volost was hostile against Boris and overflowing with hungry people fleeing from the central regions. The news dates back to the same period (beginning of the 17th century) that Boris was especially worried about the Komaritsa lands and the Ukrainian places adjacent to them, where the “Lithuanian spirit,” as he put it, was still strong. His fear was justified: under Lithuanian rule the population of these lands were not serfs.
Judging by the fact that the Komaritsa volost gave the state "dacha people" for military needs, its population consisted of the so-called black draft peasants. In addition to arable land, they used “hay meadows,” “wild oak groves,” “pine forests,” and fishing grounds: “beaver ruts,” “fishing grounds,” “side huts” (honey from wild bees). The non-peasant elements of the Komaritsa volost included the service people “on duty”, who were part of the garrison of the Sevsk fortress.
From the very beginning of the famine, peasants and slaves began to gather in detachments and attack farmers and passing merchants. In September 1603, an uprising broke out, covering a vast territory. Its leader was Ataman Khlopko. Historian of Sevsk and Komaritsa volost D.O. Svyatsky claims that the birthplace of the Khlopko uprising was the Komaritsa volost. There is no news of where the leader of the uprising was born. His name - Khlop - was like a banner for the rebels: it gathered around itself the most offended and oppressed. In the chronicles it is said about them: “But they go with a fiery battle, they don’t give in alive.” How dangerous this uprising was for the government can be seen from the attitude of Tsar Boris towards it. He repeatedly sent troops, trying to suppress the uprising, specially assembled them in the Boyar Duma and forced them to send against the “thief Khlopko the governor “with many armies” and his okolnichy (court) Basmanov, who was killed by the rebels in the battle of Moscow. The great power of the rebels is also indicated the fact that they reached from the distant outskirts to the very capital of the state, fought with a large army led by the best commander of the tsar, and yet during Khlopko’s life they were not defeated. About Khlopko himself, the historian of his time, Smirnov, says that he fought heroically near Moscow , that his personal significance in the uprising was obviously very great, since while he was alive, the rebels could not be defeated.When he was executed, the rebels, who were not captured, went to Ukraine.
After the suppression of the Khlopko uprising, unrest in Sevsk continued. It intensified when, in the fall of 1604, the invasion of the protege of the Polish-Lithuanian interventionists, the adventurer False Dmitry I, began, who hoped to take advantage of the discontent of the popular masses. That is why he moved through the unrest-ridden Seversk Ukraine. The attitude of the population towards False Dmitry I was unstable and contradictory, although at first the adventurer managed to win a number of victories and attract the masses to his side. It soon became clear that together with False Dmitry, enemies - Polish-Lithuanian magnates and gentry - invaded the Russian land.
False Dmitry did not take the Novgorod-Seversk fortress. The Poles abandoned him. His betrothed father-in-law, Pan Mnishek, Marina's father, left for Poland with the Poles, thinking that everything was lost. False Dmitry had only 1,500 Poles left. But 12,000 Cossacks approached him and Putivl, the most important fortress of the Seversk land, surrendered. The impostor’s “anonymous” letters were secretly brought to Sevsk, sent by him to many cities of Seversk Ukraine, which met with a warm response both in the city and in the Komaritsa volost. On November 24, 1604, the Sevsk residents captured two of their governors, took them shackled to Novgorod-Seversk to False Dmitry and informed him of the “submission of the city of Sevsk with the entire Komaritsa volost.” Following Sevsk, Rylsk and Kromy recognized him as sovereign. In Sevsk, False Dmitry hoped to find not only food, but also military reinforcements. At first, his entire camp settled not in the city itself, but in the Chemlizhsky prison, about ten kilometers from Sevsk. Of his 15,000 troops, the main force was 12,000 Zaporozhye Cossacks. In addition to them, there were 3 thousand Don Cossacks, 500 horse and 400 foot Moscow people, a hundred Polish infantry, 70 Polish horse banners (banners). The Moscow army numbered from 60 to 70 thousand people. Godunov's governors did not know where False Dmitry stood and what his strength was.
The decisive battle took place near the village of Dobrynichi on January 21, 1605. In this battle, False Dmitry suffered a complete defeat. The impostor fled from the battlefield to Sevsk. A.S. Pushkin in “Boris Godunov” describes precisely this night, which False Dmitry spent in Sevsk. In the Sevskaya fortress, the remnants of his troops gathered to him, but there were so few of them that they could not withstand the siege. Then, with a small detachment, he went to Rylsk.
Having won the victory, Tsar Boris Godunov ordered the devastation of the Komaritsa volost for the support provided by its population to False Dmitry. An army of several thousand mounted Tatars, who were in the service of the tsar, attacked the Komaritsa volost. Villages were ravaged and burned, men and old women were tortured and then killed, and young women and children were taken into slavery in the Crimea.
Komaritsa volost, V. Telichko, 1984.
About the devastation of the Komaritsa volost by the royal troops at the beginning of 1605.
"... These messages came to the Komaritsa volost and began to reap grass like mature and green ears, from the old to the young, and did not spare honest gray hairs, nor the red-flowering youth, nor the beauty of brides, nor the mothers of milking babies, but together with mothers we kill and pierce babies with their faces and swords and, by us, babies are torn from their mother’s bosoms, carried on spears, and killed on the platform and on thresholds and on walls by the feet, red-flowered maidens and wives are mocked and killed with great reproach, and men honor in various ways "Torment. What a lot to say! You have handed over every return of mankind and dumb cattle to sword and fire, and turned their buildings into dust and ashes."
Bit records for the time of troubles 1713-1721,
S.A. Belokurov, 1906, p. 8.
About robbers and about sending against robbers.
As in ancient times, our enemy the devil, not wanting to see the human race in goodness, introduced wickedness into people, which is called covetousness, and led many people into destruction. At that time, robberies in the Russian land increased so much that not only was there no way through deserted places, but there were also great robberies near Moscow. Tsar Boris, seeing such disorder and bloodshed in the land, sent (troops) against them (robbers) many times. . They, the robbers, like animals gnashing their teeth at a person, resisted the sent (troops), and could not do anything to them. They, the thieves, finally hacked and robbed Orthodox Christians. They, the thieves' people, (had) an elder among the robbers, named Khlopko. Tsar Boris, hearing that they could not do anything, was greatly saddened, and called the boyars to him, and told them (about this), and thought with them how to catch those robbers. The boyars came up with the idea of sending a governor with a large army against them. Tsar Boris sent his deviant Ivan Fedorovich Basmanov against them, and with him a large army. They went and met (with the robbers) near Moscow. The robbers fought with them, not sparing their heads, and they killed the governor Ivan Fedorovich Basmanov. The soldiers, seeing such destruction from them that the robbers killed their commander, began to fight with them, not sparing their bellies, and were barely able to overpower them, the damned ones, and killed many of them: they were not given into their hands alive; and others were taken alive. And they could hardly take the same thief, their elder Cotton, alive, because (he) was exhausted from many wounds; and others (thieves) went to Ukraine, and there they were all caught, the thieves, and (the king) ordered them all to be hanged. Tsar Boris ordered the governor Ivan Basmanov to be buried honestly at the Trinity in the Sergius Monastery.
Robberies on the roads.
In this month of September, the serfs belonging to various Moscow boyars and masters, partly rebelled, united together and began to rob travelers. From them, the roads to Poland and Livonia became very dangerous, and they took refuge in deserts and forests near the roads; against them the tsar sent a brave young man, Ivan Fedorovich Basmanov, and with him about a hundred of the best archers to capture those thieves, but those thieves soon found out about this and waylaid him (Basmanov with the archers) on a narrow road in the middle of the forest, surrounded and shot almost everyone who was with him, and the king was very saddened that this happened to such a valiant knight, and he ordered to show diligence and catch those robbers, and having caught them, hang them all on the trees on the same roads.
Extract from "Brief news about Muscovy at the beginning of the 17th century"
Isaac Massa. 1606
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The Rise of Cottonpaw
In the seventeenth century, namely in 1603, at the beginning of the so-called Peasant War in Tsarist Russia, an uprising of slaves and peasants broke out, led by Cotton Kosolap.
It is not for nothing that historians and researchers of this historical period called it “rebellious,” because at that time a storm of coups swept through the Russian state, marked by numerous bloodsheds, which actually led the country to the loss of state independence, and also tested the fortitude of the Slavic people. The beginning of these events is considered to be the Cotton uprising.
Main Causes of the Cotton Rebellion
Modern historians believe that the following factors acted as the reasons that became the “catalyst” for the uprising:
- The death of the Russian tyrant and dictator Ivan the Fourth the Terrible, who, for his own benefit, introduced the oprichnina, which was hated by all layers of society of that time that existed in Rus'. At the same time, his death plunged Russia into Troubles, since he was the last of the legitimate representatives of power (the Last Rurikovich).
- The clash of interests of different social strata that occupied different positions in the state hierarchy.
- Tightening of feudal oppression in the years 1780-1790, through the legislative approval of serfdom in the state.
- In the end, the establishment of serfdom completely took away the rights of peasants and slaves, which deprived them of political status in the state.
- Mass famine, as well as epidemics provoked by lean years during the reign of Boris Godunov. Due to climate change, early frosts and late spring in 1601-1603, not only the harvest, but also the seed material was destroyed, which led to a shortage of bread and the introduction of high prices for this product.
All of the above caused the death of many thousands of people, as well as mass flights of peasants and slaves from their landowners who could not feed them. Quite often, these fugitives united in bandits and hunted in the forests by robbing merchants and wealthy citizens.
No matter how Godunov tried to help those in need, distributing money and bread from state reserves, such measures only aggravated the economic decay existing in Russia and soon the landowners themselves began to drive their own peasants out of their estates, unable to feed them.
The main indicator that served as a guide for government officials was the wave of popular uprisings in 1602, which resulted in the loss of vast territories in the southwestern and eastern regions of the Russian state, to which the rebellious population fled.
Events and progress of the Cotton uprising
The main driving force behind the uprising were:
- Military serfs or so-called boyar people, who at one time underwent military training and had weapons with them.
- Peasants and serfs who were able to escape from their landowners by uniting in detachments and making a living as robberies. Sometimes the number of such detachments exceeded a hundred people, and in the army of Ataman Khlopk there were about six hundred people.
As a result of these events, one of the largest popular riots of the seventeenth century began in August 1603, led by Cotton.
Riots began to arise spontaneously. The uprising swept the main Russian cities: Kolomna, Medyn, Vyazma, Mozhaisk, Rzhev, Vladimir, and Volokolamsk. But the main forces were concentrated near the capital.
After some time, Khlopok’s troops managed to take control of the Smolensk highway, connecting the central and western parts of the state. At first, representatives of the boyars did not pay any attention to the uprising, but very soon they realized that it was a huge mistake, because in a short time there was a real threat of seizing state power.
Immediately, active preparatory work for the defense of the capital began, for which the city was divided into a dozen defense sectors, each of which was headed by a boyar or okolnichy. The command of the defense of Moscow was entrusted by the Boyar Duma to governor Buturlin.
In September of the same year, a large tsarist army advanced from the capital under the command of the okolnichy Basmanov. As a result of the battles, the archers were forced to retreat several times. However, thanks to equipment and discipline, they soon managed to defeat the rebel detachments, many of whom themselves decided to surrender only after seeing the size of the king’s army.
At the same time, a certain part of the rebels still managed to escape to the southern regions, which were still under the control of Cotton. Ataman Kosolap himself was wounded, captured, and later executed in Moscow.
The commander of the tsarist army, Okolnichy Basmanov, was also killed during the decisive battle, and the uprising itself became the beginning of the so-called Bolotnikov Peasant War.
Video lecture: Cotton Rebellion
The seventeenth century in Russian historical science was called “rebellious,” and for good reason: the entire course of the seventeenth century was colored by flashes of bloody events, and this turbulent time for the country was opened by the Cotton uprising.
Brief background to the uprising
The turn of the 16th-17th centuries became a test of strength for Russia; in some periods the state was on the verge of losing sovereignty. Clashes of interests of social groups occupying different positions in society reached the point of irreconcilable destruction of each other. The purely socio-economic reasons for such violent discontent among the lower classes also include the current political situation in Russia. Quite recently, the cruel and merciless autocrat died, whose oprichnina policy caused dull murmurs from all segments of the population. The death of the Tsar, on the one hand, caused a sigh of relief, and on the other, plunged the country into decades of the Time of Troubles. The fact is that the children of Ivan IV were not very healthy (Fyodor was like that; he died soon after his father). The last remaining scion of the once mighty Rurik family was a minor, and therefore could not rule; in addition, he died under mysterious circumstances. Here the noble boyar family of the Godunovs, who took the throne, came to the political forefront, arguing their action by their kinship with the last tsar.
Causes of the uprising
However, the new sovereign was catastrophically 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 top of the other and caused an unprecedented rise in popular indignation. One of its manifestations was the Cotton uprising. 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 the year 1602, when large-scale robberies led to the loss of control of some territories. We had to send military teams to suppress them. In 1602-1603 As a result of early frosts, widespread famine occurred, 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 - was completely paralyzed. Detachments of fugitive serfs operated here under the command of Cotton Crookshanks. The authorities, who initially did not attach much importance to this, soon realized their mistake. Large military forces had to be deployed against the rebels; on the orders of Boris Godunov, a regiment of Moscow archers under the leadership of the okolnichy I.F. was sent to meet the “disobedient slaves.” Basmanova. The uprising led by Khlopko covered more and more territories; it is noteworthy that they did not put forward political and economic demands, but deliberately and with great cruelty engaged in ordinary robbery and robbery. The Tsar's governor treated the fighting capabilities of the fugitive slaves and their leader with disdain, for which he soon paid. 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 troops and began to retreat, but, unfamiliar with military tactics, they opened their rear, which their opponents took advantage of. The total extermination of the rebels began; even those slaves who did not resist and were captured were soon executed without any trial or investigation. The leader of the uprising himself was seriously wounded and captured by the royal troops. His fate was sealed. In Moscow, Khlopko was executed.
A forerunner of the civil war?
The Cotton Rebellion of 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 families of the state were downright hostile to the new tsar, considering him a usurper and murderer of Dmitry of Uglich. Such disagreements could not but affect the lower classes, because the conductors of public opinion in that period were the boyars and nobles, and the lack of solidarity among them gave rise to various social disturbances. Many researchers consider the Time of Troubles to be the first civil war, because all layers 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 Cotton uprising, which preceded a whole series of bloody acts.
In 1603, at the very beginning of the Peasant War in Russia in the 17th century, there was an uprising of serfs and serfs led by Cotton Kosolap.
Historians nicknamed the 17th century “rebellious” for the many bloody events, coups, and uprisings of this time, which led the state to almost the loss of its state independence and tested the strength of the Russian people. The series of these blazing events was opened by the uprising of Cotton.
The Cotton Rebellion was the result of many causes, including:
- the death of the cruel tyrant Ivan the Terrible, who introduced the oprichnina and turned absolutely all segments of the population against it, but whose death (since he was the last legitimate autocrat) plunged the state into the era of the Time of Troubles;
- clashes of interests of various social groups that occupied unequal positions in the state;
- tightening of feudal oppression in 1780−1790. as a result of the legislative approval of serfdom;
- the establishment of serfdom, which finally took away all rights from slaves and peasants and led to their political oppression;
- epidemics and prolonged mass famine during the lean period of 1601-1603, which occurred as a result of early frosts: there was snow in September and frosts did not disappear even in summer (there is a version that such natural quirks occurred as a result of the volcanic winter in Peru after the eruption of the Huaynaputina volcano) .
All this led to widespread poverty, half a million victims, a total flight of slaves and peasants from their landowners, their unification into criminal groups and rampant robbery.
The government tried to somehow help those in need by distributing money and bread to them. But such measures only deepened economic decay. The landowners were unable to provide provisions for their servants and peasants: they had to drive them out of their estates. It is quite natural that without any means of subsistence, these former slaves could only rob and kill, which intensified the general chaos.
The main indicator that served as a wake-up call for the government to turn to the army for help was the large-scale robberies of 1602, as a result of which significant territories were lost in 19 eastern, central and southwestern counties of the country. It was there that the main protest population fled and gathered there.
Participants of the uprising
The driving force behind the uprising were:
- serfs and peasants who managed to escape from their masters and unite into groups engaged in robbery (the number of individual gangs reached hundreds of people, and the army of Ataman Khlopk consisted of 600 people);
- military serfs (the so-called boyar people), who underwent military training and were well armed.
As a result, in August 1603, one of the largest riots of the early 17th century began - the uprising led by Cotton.
Progress of the uprising
- Summer 1603. This is the date of the beginning of the uprising, which broke out spontaneously. It covered the main central cities of Russia: Volokolamsk, Vladimir, Rzhev, Mozhaisk, Vyazma, Medyn, Kolomna. The main protest mass, led by Cotton Kosolap, was concentrated near Moscow. As a result, the rebels managed to paralyze the main Smolensk highway, which connected the western and central parts of the country with transport links. Initially, the Boyar Duma did not attach much importance to these rebel serfs and peasants, but later they realized their mistake, because there was a real threat of a forceful seizure of the capital by the rebels. Therefore, active preparatory work began for the defense of Moscow from the rebels, for which Moscow was divided into 12 defensive sectors. Each of these sectors was headed by a okolnichy or a boyar, and the Boyar Duma entrusted the command of the city’s defense to the governor I.M. Buturlin.
- September 1603. A large royal army was sent from Moscow under the leadership of the okolnichy Basmanov. During the battles, the royal archers retreated several times. But thanks to their combat training and equipment, they managed to defeat the rebels, many of whom surrendered voluntarily at the sight of the troops (and also because they promised to forgive everyone). Some of the rebels fled to the southern regions, which were still under their control. The captured peasants were executed. Cotton Crookshanks was wounded and later executed in the capital. Okolnichy Basmanov was killed during the battle.
Results of the uprising
- the uprising became the beginning of the peasant war of I.I. Bolotnikov, and the peasants who fled to the south will become active participants;
- The uprising demonstrated the extent of social contradictions that required immediate resolution.
The uprising led to the fact that the government began to take measures to consolidate the noble ranks and clans in Russia into one political union for the sake of preserving the country's independence.
Hunger riots. Three years in a row, with 1600 g., in spring and summer there were torrential rains across the country. In early autumn they were replaced by frosts, the bread did not ripen and died on the vine. A terrible famine broke out. Abraham Palitsyn, cellarer of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, wrote in his “Tales”: in Moscow over the years, 127 thousand people who died of hunger were buried in just three skudelnitsa (cemeteries). The same thing happened all over the country. A huge number of people died. Beggars and vagabonds roamed everywhere. Boyars and nobles kicked out slaves from their yards so as not to feed them.
Thousands of peasants, serfs, and townspeople fled to the outskirts, especially the southwestern and southern ones. Combustible material accumulated there, ready to burst into flames at any time. The authorities call these people “thieves”, “robbers”, “dashing people”. And not without reason - after all, they attack rich people. It was known that they had large reserves of bread from previous years. But they saved it to inflate prices and make money.
Already with 1601 g., according to the same Palitsyn, it began “confusion throughout the Russian land”, “robbery throughout all Russia”. Bands of robbers attack landowners and the rich. The authorities send punitive detachments against them. They operate in many districts of central Russia, including in the Moscow region.
Cotton Rebellion in Russia
IN 1603 g. began Cotton's rebellion. It broke out in the southwestern districts of the country, where thousands of slaves gathered, from whom, judging by their nickname, their leader came, and other disadvantaged people. The rebels destroyed noble estates. Their detachments gathered into an army, and it moved towards the capital. Against “thieves” A large army was sent, led by the okolnichy I.F. Basmanov, a young and capable military leader.
Khlopka Kosolap or Ataman Khlopko, who led the peasant uprising of 1603-1604.
In October 1603, both armies converged west of Moscow. The rebels unexpectedly attacked Basmanov's vanguard and defeated him. The commander also died. The battle of the main forces was fierce and bloody. Only with great effort did the government army defeat the homespun army of Khlopok. He was captured and executed, like many rebels. But others escaped and fled to where they came from: to the southwestern outskirts.
Cotton's Rebellion was the culmination of the "hunger riots" of 1601-1603.. and later developed into movements.
