16. The Brutal Suppression of Russia’s First Major Peasant Revolt
Unfortunately for Stenka Razin and Russia’s downtrodden serfs, their run of success was halted at the city of Simbrisk, which they attacked but failed to capture. After two vicious battles in its vicinity, Razin’s forces were routed and nearly annihilated by vengeful government forces. So Razin fled back to the Don. Despite the defeat at Simbrisk, Razin’s emissaries stirred further uprisings farther north. He proclaimed his intention to found a republic, in which the Cossacks’ absolute equality would be extended to all throughout the whole of Russia. That found receptive ears among the peasantry and serfs.
Soon, armed peasants, in search of freedom and deliverance from their yoke, were gathered in bands on the outskirts of Moscow, and around Nizhny Novgorod, about 250 miles to the east. Once the government gathered its strength, however, the lightly armed serfs and peasants proved no match for the discipline and firepower of professional soldiers. The uprisings were brutally put down, followed by a wave of violent repression in which hundreds of thousands of peasants and serfs were massacred. About 100,000 were slaughtered in the Novgorod region alone. By 1671, the revolt was over, and in April of that year, Stenka Razin was captured and taken to Moscow. There, he underwent a gruesome public execution in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral, in which his limbs were chopped off, before he was finally beheaded.
