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Prerequisites for an uprising
Dynastic crisis
Patriarch Joachim influenced the proclamation of one of the brothers as king, supporting the Naryshkins and declaring Peter Alekseevich the future ruler. For the Miloslavskys, the election of Peter could mean the loss of power prospects. Princess Sofya Alekseevna, Peter's paternal sister, taking advantage of the discontent of the archers at the delay in salaries and the arbitrariness of the authorities, and relying on the Miloslavsky clan and the boyars (including princes Vasily Golitsyn and Ivan Khovansky), took an active part in the Streltsy rebellion of 1682, also known How Khovanshchina .
As a result of this rebellion, the Miloslavskys established themselves in Moscow, and Sophia was declared regent in the face of poor health, Ivan and the young Peter. He, along with his mother Natalya Naryshkina, moved to Preobrazhenskoye, the country residence of the late Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The management of the princess was helped by her associate, the head of the Streltsy order, Fyodor Shaklovity. The reign of Sofya Alekseevna during the nominal reign of Peter I and Ivan V lasted seven years, until 1689. The marriage of Peter with Evdokia Lopukhina on January 27, 1689 deprived Sophia of the right of legal guardianship over her younger brother, and the princess was removed from power.
The position of the archery troops
The Streltsy army consisted of infantry units and was the first regular army in Russia, formed in the middle of the 16th century. Moscow archers were in a privileged position and were often called "Russian Janissaries", that is, special soldiers of the royal army. In the last decades of the 17th century, Moscow archers actively participated in political processes and often opposed the government. The rebellion of the archery troops of 1698 was the last uprising of the "rebellious" XVII century. Its history is connected with other performances of archers (especially with the rebellion of 1682) and the events of the domestic policy of Russia in the late 17th - early 18th centuries. The events of the late 17th century influenced the decision of Peter I to liquidate the streltsy army and begin the formation of regular military forces, completely controlled by the sovereign.
Moscow archers settled in special settlements, mainly in Zamoskvorechye, and were a very prosperous category of the population. In addition to receiving a salary, they had the right to engage in crafts and trade without incurring township duties. The military reforms of Peter I were aimed at depriving the archers of their former privileges. Peter sought to turn the "Russian Janissaries" into soldiers submissive to state power.
Participation of Moscow archers in the Azov campaigns
In the summer of 1697, instead of returning to Moscow, four archery regiments stationed in Azov under the command of Fyodor Kolzakov, Ivan Cherny (Chamors), Afanasy Chubarov and Tikhon Gundertmark were sent to Velikiye Luki to guard the Polish-Lithuanian border. The new campaign for the archers was very difficult. They independently pulled ships along the rivers and carried guns. At that time, the state treasury was depleted, and the salaries of the servicemen were paid irregularly, despite the fact that the service was required to be carried out with high quality and practically without rest.
Many archers were burdened by long-distance and long service. For several years they could not return to Moscow, leaving their families and crafts there. The appointment of foreign officers to senior military positions caused particular dissatisfaction with the archers. As the Soviet historian Viktor Buganov writes, “there are more than enough grounds for dissatisfaction among the archers, as in 1682. These are the hardships of campaigns, heavy losses during sieges and assaults on the Azov fortifications, distrust on the part of commanders, including foreigners, hunger, cold and other hardships, extreme insufficiency of salaries, isolation from families, from their crafts, which were a serious help for feeding " .
The course of the riot
Start
In the ranks of the streltsy troops sent to the northwestern borders, grumbling and discontent were ripening. The situation was aggravated by the absence of Peter I in the state, who in 1697-1698 was abroad as part of the “great embassy”. Instead of himself, Peter left Prince-Caesar Fyodor Romodanovsky as the manager in Moscow.
In March 1698, 175 archers appeared in Moscow, deserting from the regiments sent to Velikie Luki. Streltsy answered the Moscow authorities that "their brothers streltsy go from service from starvation" and indicated that they had been sent to Moscow with a petition for a salary. The fugitive archers were going to go to the head of the Streltsy order, the boyar Ivan Troyekurov. Fyodor Romodanovsky, in a letter to Peter, wrote that the archers beat with their foreheads in the Streltsy order "with their guilt about their escape and ran de ani from the tago that the bread is dorok." From the surviving letter of Romodanovsky it is also clear that the requests of the archers for the payment of salaries were granted, but the fugitive archers refused to leave Moscow "until dryness", that is, until the roads dry up. They complained about the hardships of service, harassment, begging.
Boyar Troyekurov ordered the archers to present four elected representatives for negotiations. During a meeting in the princely house, Troekurov ordered the arrest of the elected, but in the courtyard they were beaten off by the crowd supporting the archers. Later, during interrogation, one of the leaders of the fugitive archers testified: “We are going to the boyar to Prince Ivan Borisovich [Troyekurov] to beat with our foreheads about who took away their grain salary, and to give them that grain salary as before; and if he refuses, and tell them to give them a period of two days. And if they don’t give them bread, and on Monday or when we finish them on Tuesday, boyars, we’ll take everyone out and beat them.” The episode indicates the readiness of the archers to deal with some of the Moscow boyars.
The archers took refuge in the settlements and from there established contact with Tsarevna Sofya Alekseevna, who was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent. On April 4, 1698, the soldiers of the Semyonovsky regiment were sent against the archers, who, with the assistance of the townspeople, forced the fugitive archers to leave the capital. Arriving from Moscow, "streltsy-walkers" incited the streltsy regiments to revolt. Among the archers, two letters written by Tsarevna Sophia began to be read, calling on the regiments to revolt and overthrow Peter. The authenticity of the letters has never been established. Rumors also spread among the troops that Peter had “become Germanic”, renounced the Orthodox faith, or even died in Europe.
At the end of May, four streltsy regiments were transferred from Velikiye Luki to Toropets, where the residence of the voivode Mikhail Romodanovsky was located. In response to the refusal of the archers to hand over the fugitives, Romodanovsky ordered the palace army to be withdrawn from Toropets and placed on the Moscow road in battle order. On June 6, all archery regiments converged on the Dvina River. On the same day, a Pentecostal of the Chubarov regiment, Artemy Maslov, read in the presence of all the regiments a letter from Sofya Alekseevna, urging them to go to Moscow. On June 9, Johann Korb, a German diplomat who was in Moscow, wrote: “Today, for the first time, a vague rumor about the rebellion of the archers spread and aroused universal horror.”
Main events
At the beginning of June 1698, the archers headed for Moscow, displacing the regimental commanders and electing four elected in each regiment. Fyodor Romodanovsky wrote in a letter to Peter abroad that on June 11, four captains from four rebellious archery regiments appeared at the Discharge Order in Moscow. As soon as four regiments came together, they took away the banners, cannons, lifting horses, money treasury, batmen and guards from the colonels and "did not listen to them in anything." In response, the king briefly decided - "it is impossible to extinguish this fire." The rebels (about 2,200 people) could only reach the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery on the Istra River, located thirty-five miles from Moscow, where they met with government troops.
The government sent Preobrazhensky, Semenovsky, Lefortovsky and Butyrsky regiments (about four thousand people) and noble cavalry under the command of Alexei Shein, General Patrick Gordon and Lieutenant General Prince Ivan Koltsov-Mosalsky against the archers.
Battle at the New Jerusalem Monastery
In the battle near the New Jerusalem Monastery, on the side of the government troops, they took part:
Executions of archers
The investigation and investigation of the Streltsy rebellion can be divided into several stages. The first investigation and executions were carried out immediately in June 1698 at the Resurrection Monastery. Upon the return of Peter, a decree was issued on a new search in the case of the Streltsy uprising. Interrogations, torture and executions continued throughout 1699 and 1700.
On June 22 and 28, on the orders of Shein, 56 “growing breeders” of the rebellion were hanged, on July 2, 74 “fugitives” were sent to Moscow. 140 people were beaten with a whip and exiled, 1965 people were sent to prisons in cities and monasteries.
Returning from abroad on August 25, 1698, Peter I was not satisfied with the search, hastily carried out by Alexei Shein and Fyodor Romodanovsky. On September 17, Sophia's name day, a new investigation began. The wives, sisters, relatives of the archers, and the servants of Princess Sophia were also interrogated and tortured. Peter was convinced of the guilt of the royal sisters and personally participated in the interrogation of Sophia. However, she did not admit her guilt, and no incriminating letter was found.
In Moscow, executions began on October 10, 1698. In total, more than a thousand archers were executed, about 600 were beaten with a whip, branded and exiled. Peter I cut off the heads of five archers personally. For five months, the corpses of executed archers were not removed from the place of execution. The corpses of three archers, hung at the windows of the cell of Princess Sophia, were held in the hands of petitions, "and in those petitions it was written against their guilt."
Streltsy wives and children were ordered to leave Moscow. It was forbidden to give them work or alms, as a result of which the members of the archery families were doomed to starvation. Yard places of archers in Moscow were distributed or sold by the Streltsy order. Among the new land owners were prominent statesmen of the time of Peter the Great: Alexander Menshikov, Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev, Count Fyodor Golovin. A number of archery farms were transferred to various clerks and clerks. A certain amount of land was received by employees of the guards regiments. Among the buyers of the streltsy plots were merchants, artisans, clergy and even watchmen.
The investigation and executions continued until 1707 and ended with the execution of Artemy Maslov, one of the leaders of the uprising, who in the summer of 1698 read out (real or false) a message to the archers of Princess Sophia. At the end of the 17th - beginning of the 18th centuries, 16 provincial archery regiments that did not participate in the uprising were disbanded, and the archers were demoted to ordinary soldiers, deported with their families from Moscow to other cities and recorded in townships.
Subsequent military reform 1699 secured the replacement of the archery troops by a government-controlled regular army.
Executions in the descriptions of historians and eyewitnesses
In the works of historians of the pre-revolutionary and Soviet periods, the Moscow Streltsy regiments are presented as "backward" troops, "who have lost their combat capability." The "backwardness" of the old-style troops is usually defined through comparison with the reformed and "progressive" Petrine army. As another criterion for a negative assessment of the streltsy troops, the fact of their participation in the political crises of the late 17th century is singled out.
Pre-revolutionary historiography
Already in the works of the authors of the first quarter of the 18th century, there are sharply negative characteristics of the streltsy performances, including the 1698 rebellion. Archers are portrayed as Sophia's tool in the struggle for power. In the "Journal of Sovereign Peter I" compiled by Baron Huissen, the archers "by their own will" are compared with the ancient Roman Praetorians and Turkish Janissaries.
Streltsy troops did not act as an object of serious historical research until the appearance of the work of Sergei Solovyov "History" of Russia "from" the most ancient "times". In his work, the historian also adheres to the position of the inevitability and necessity of Peter's reforms. The Streltsy army appears in the narrative only in the context of the history of the political crisis in Russia, which was overcome by the genius of Peter. The historian presented a derogatory attitude towards archers, following the assessments of sources, especially Patrick Gordon's Diary.
Currently, researchers are significantly revising the history of the archery riots, as well as the role and participation of archers in political life XVII century.
Streltsy rebellion in literature and art
- The punishment of the archers after the 1698 riot is depicted in the painting by Vasily Surikov "Morning of the Streltsy" execution, painted in 1881.
- In 1883, the score of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina was published, revised by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
- Ilya Repin in the painting " Grand Duchess Sophia in the Novodevichy Convent (1698)" presented the sister of Peter I imprisoned in the monastery after the Streltsy rebellion.
- The events of the Streltsy riots of 1682 and 1698 are described in the novels of Alexei Tolstoy "Peter I" and Rufin Gordin's "The Game of Fate".
- These events were also reflected in the film "At the beginning of glorious deeds" and the television series "Peter the Great".
Notes
- , With. 406
- Kostomarov N.I. The history of Russia in the biographies of its main figures. Chapter 15. Peter the Great (indefinite) . State Public Scientific and Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
- Soloviev S.M. History Russia since the most ancient times. Volume 14. Chapter 3. (indefinite) . Russian Historical Library. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
- , With. 45
- Alexander Lavrentiev. Sagittarius riots (indefinite) . Postscience (March 5, 2015). Retrieved June 30, 2017.
- , With. 139
- , With. 297
- , With. 365
- , With. 115
- , With. 365-366
- , With. 315
New disfigurements also appeared: burning the tongue (for blasphemy before the death penalty (Military Art., ch. I, ar. 3), piercing the hands under the gallows for an hour with a knife or nail (for wounding - in front of gauntlets (Military Art., ch. 17, ar. 143).
Self-mutilating punishments, plentiful even in the era of Peter, began to die out by the middle of the 18th century. They were not profitable for the government: mutilated people created an unnecessary burden and burden for society. At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, it was decided to cut the right hand of murderers instead of the death penalty. But this was not practiced for long; “Such people, according to the decree, cannot be valid for any work, but only here they will receive food for themselves,” and on March 29, 1753, it was supposed to punish murderers severely with a whip, brand them and exile them to eternal penal servitude. In the draft Code of 1754, there are no self-harmful punishments, they were replaced with a whip. Only a section of the tongue and nostrils survived.
State criminals, conspirators, rebels. Under Peter, Poklonsky was punished in this way in the case of Tsarevich Alexei: he was deprived of his tongue, ears and nose (Valishevsky: “Peter the Great”). Under Biron, according to the testimony of the Saxon envoy Zum, before execution, Volynsky was secretly cut off in prison tongue, covered his mouth with a muzzle and tied on the head, so that blood does not flow (V. Goltsev: “Morals of the Russian society in the XVIII century”, Legal Bulletin, 1886 I). Under Elizabeth, the same punishment was determined by Lopukhina, Bestuzheva and others (See below).
At that time it was especially often practiced; it was usually combined with commercial execution, branding and exile to hard labor. Peter’s decree of 1705 read: “kolodnikov, all ranks of people who are in His Sovereign affairs, and in tatbs and robberies and all sorts of theft, theft, murder and rebels .... do not execute them with death .... repair them cruelly punishment and stain with a new stain, cut out the nostrils at the nose and exile them to hard labor in eternal work "(Timofeev:" History of corporal punishment in Russian law ", pp. 138-139). In 1724, the government, noticing that many the convicts “the nostrils were taken out trivially” ordered them to be “taken out to the bone” (P. S. 3. VIII, Jan. 15, 1724).
The nostrils were flogged for pretending to be sick, with the aim of evading service; or, as it happened, for example, with the schoolboy Lukyan Vasiliev, for drunken words about the Sovereign (they took out his nostrils with tongs, gave him 30 blows with a whip and sent him to hard labor for eternity) (Semevsky: “Word and deed under Peter in the 18th century ”). In 1733, it was decided for the wrong collection of royalties, dues and contracts, either to be executed or to cut out the nostrils and exiled to eternal hard labor in Siberia (Karnovich: "Duke Biron". Otechestvennye zapiski 1873, book 10-11). in the same year, for a false word and deed, priests, old and unfit for military service, were ordered to cut out their nostrils and refer to eternal hard labor (Ibid.). Under Elizabeth, recruits who severely hurt themselves were punished in this way; recruits at the declaration of war with Sweden in 1742. The same was supposed to be for the sale of fugitive soldiers.
In 1754, the restriction of this punishment began, it was forbidden to cut out the nostrils of exiled women; - the decree read: “do not take out their nostrils and do not put signs in order to cut out the nostrils of male convicts and put signs in that reasoning so that they are out of exile .... repair shoots and, by not putting signs on them, hiding in they did not dare to commit such theft, and a woman from such remote places in Siberia cannot both escape and repair theft ”(P.S. 3. 10. 686).
The dominance of the whip in the punitive system of the 18th century continued in its former dimensions. Commercial execution was imposed on a wide variety of criminals, state conspirators, bribe-takers, thieves who committed robbery without killing, recruiting fugitive soldiers (Recruitment Code of 1742), swindlers, concealers (P. S. Z. 3514, 1718; 3837 1721), schismatics who fled from Siberia (P. S. Z.: 4109, 1722, 1757 [In the text - a typo - it says "P. S. S."]). They beat the voivodes with a whip who violated the instructions given when they were sent to office (P. S. 3 .: 3291 uk., 1719), beggars begging for alms in places, around the world in Moscow (Reports of the Governing Senate, vol. I, No. 203 ); people who beat cattle in an unspecified place were also sentenced to this punishment (Timofeev: p. 158), etc.
In 1712, those guilty of the murder of the head of Kamchatka Atlasov, Grigory Shiban and Andrey Petrov, were punished as follows: “they were put on the chopping block”, then they were removed, and the great sovereign granted them: “for their previous services, he did not order to be executed by death, but they showed them 2 they were beaten with a whip on the small fingers of their left hands and on the goat, and they were driven through the streets ”(Reply of the Kamchatka clerk Vasily Kolosov in June 1713. Memory. Sib. Ist. I No. 123).
By the 20s of the 18th century in Russia, the view of the public commercial execution had changed radically. The indifferent attitude towards this punishment disappeared: they began to look at it as something shameful, depriving the offender of honor. At first, the shamefulness of such executions was recognized only for the military. The decree of 1745 clearly states this: “those who are not beaten with a whip, those who are fit to be sent to the Astrakhan garrison, and those who are not fit for service or whipped, return to the landlords or write them down in a capitation salary, where they wish to live” (Tyamofeev). Even earlier, under Anna Ioannovna, it was decided that whoever denounces the first two points while drunk, write to them as soldiers and beat them with whips, and whoever is not fit to become soldiers, beat them with a whip (P. S. 3. No. 5528) . Consequently, this punishment made it impossible to enter the military service. With the passage of time, this attitude towards the commercial execution became firmly established. Gradually, other corporal punishments began to be considered shameful.
After the abolition of the death penalty (1753), punishment with a whip with cutting out the nostrils and eternal exile became the heaviest criminal punishment for criminals. It was imposed for all crimes for which execution used to follow, while it was accompanied by a certain rite: the punished person was put on the scaffold, his head was put on the chopping block, then they were beaten with a whip, branded, and only after that they were exiled to eternal penal servitude. For less important offenses, a whip was appointed, without the rite of death, with hard labor for a fixed time.
From the beginning of the eighteenth century. Peter introduced German gauntlets in our country - flexible rods, about a sazhen long and slightly less than an inch in diameter (Such a sample of gauntlets was sent from St. Petersburg in 1831 to punish military settlers, see A. A. Seryakov: "My working life." Rus. Star. 1876 v. 141, item 160). The procedure for punishment with this weapon was extremely cruel. They placed two long rows of soldiers and each was given a gauntlet in his hands. The convict was bared back to the waist, tied his hands to a gun turned to him with a bayonet, and for this gun they led him through the ranks. Blows rained down on him from right and left, he could not run away from them: a sharp bayonet made him slowly march; - the drum crackled, groaned and begged for mercy, the unfortunate one.
In the laws, gauntlets are first mentioned in 1701, in the Short Article. In 1712, the Senate ordered fugitive recruits to inflict punishment under the article with gauntlets. Until the 1920s, they were not very common. But already the Military Article of Peter appointed them for the most diverse crimes. So, gauntlets were relied upon: for various military crimes (V. Ar. ch. II, ar. 37; ch. VI, ar. 59; ch. XII, ar. 95; gk. XVII, ar. 133), for witchcraft, sorcery and idolatry, if in this case the guilty person did not cause any harm to anyone or entered into an obligation
with Satan (Military Ar. ch. I, ar. 1.), for vilifying the Mother of God and the Saints for the second time, but out of frivolity (Military Ar. ch. II, ar. 6), for adultery (Military Ar. ch. X, ap. 170) and much more.
Torture with gauntlets, in strength and cruelty, was not inferior to a whip; but it did not deprive the criminal of his good name, his honor. While, after a merchant execution, the soldier could not continue his service, being considered disgraced for a century, the punishment with gauntlets left him all rights. Here is what the decree of 1721 says about this: “which officers ... and privates will be sentenced to hard labor in eternal labor with punishment, those to be beaten with a whip, and those for the assigned years, those to be driven with a gauntlet, but not to be beaten with a whip ... for the fact that if, after the end of the predetermined years, they are freed, then due to such a vice that they were in the hands of Kat, it is impossible to use them in the former service. A little later, in the reign of Elizabeth, in 1751, instead of a whip, soldiers were assigned gauntlets for taverns, “so that they were in the service; they could have deserved their guilt ”(P. S. 3. 9912, 1751), the decree reads. The decree of 1757 speaks even more definitely, in which the general institution on recruiting ordered clerks and elders for recruiting someone else’s peasant “to drive cruelly with gauntlets and assign soldiers to the St. "(P. S. 3. 10786 1757, 1, 6, 8).
Less painful than gauntlets was considered the punishment of cats and molting, introduced by Peter the Great for the fleet.
Cats are four-tailed whips with knots at the ends. For the first time in the laws they are found in 1720, in the Marine Charter (In this monument, cats were appointed for many crimes instead of gauntlets. M. Pylyaev and V. Korolenko believe that cats are whips with iron paws. (M. Pylyaev: Torment, torture and executioners". Labor 1890. I, V. Korolenko: "Russian torture", Russian wealth 1912, I). This definition is completely wrong.). Soon this punishment became widespread among us; cats began to be beaten not only in one fleet: - so, from 1724 they punished cabbies when they rode unbridled horses, from 1725 dishonest bread sellers and buyers who interfered with the purchase of goods for household needs (P. S.-Z . 4634 1725); since 1789 - merchants of vegetables and fruits on the street, since this privilege was given exclusively to women and children (II. C. 3. 7825, 1739).
They began to punish with cats, under Anna Ioannovna, and prostitutes. In the days of Muscovite Rus' and under Peter, prostitution was persecuted in our country with batogs and whips. From the time of Anna Ioannovna, the law began to treat fallen women somewhat softer. One of the decrees of her reign stated the following regarding prostitutes: “the Senate is aware that many disorders are being made in many free houses, and especially many freethinkers keep indecent wives and girls, which is very contrary to the Christian pious law, for the sake of looking if where such indecent wives are and the girls will turn out to be whipped with cats and knocked out of those houses ”(S. O. Shashkov:“ The History of a Russian Woman ”p. 871).
They also beat with cats the hiders of fugitives and all kinds of criminals in the Secret Chancellery and the police. According to the Elizabethan Decree of 1754, they were also ordered to be beaten for violating the regulations on cleanliness in the Admiralty. In 1754, the serf Major Evreinov was punished with cats, who helped their master steal a girl for fornication (Timofeev: “History of corporal punishment in Russian law”, p. 202).
Molts were simple pieces of rope with knots. This punishment did not extend beyond the fleet; it was applied, almost entirely, to sailors for disciplinary offenses.
Besides these guns, at the beginning; XVIII Art. still punished with batogs. But by this era, they began to gradually die out and be forced out by whips (Peter V. canceled the right. Again a short time it was restored by Biron and, finally, completely destroyed by Elizabeth). During the time of Peter V., they were beaten with batogs for violating police orders. In the instructions to Ober-Policemeister Grekov dated July 9, 1722, they ordered to punish “noble houses of stewards for burning stoves in the summer at an unspecified time” (It was allowed to fire only twice a week), if they violated this decree for the fourth time, “of any rank of people who will carry rubbish and any litter to the river and throw it, ”and disobedient people selling grubs without maintaining cleanliness, not in the indicated dress (P. S. 3. VI, No. 4047). They beat with batogs minors for failure to appear at the review (Doc. and etc. of the Senate III, 2, No. 1010), recruits for flight (Ibid. II, I, No. 163), and state criminals. The landowner Kharlamov, for example, was beaten with batogs for his impudent words: “in St. Petersburg, the Sovereign is lying” (Semevsky: “Word and deed under Peter in the 18th century”). , inflict punishment not according to the code, but simply beat with batogs "landowner Bobnev for the double sale of the estate. Bobnev was given such a favor because of his old age (P. S. 3. No. 6073). They beat with batogs instead of a whip and overseers of serf affairs (P. S 3. No. 5594).
Sometimes this punishment was used instead of a fine. So, in 1738, it was ordered to sell lard, copper, oil, resin and other goods in thin barrels and tubs. If someone did not comply with this rule, they took a fine of 1 ruble from him, and who had nothing to pay, they were punished at trading places with merciless batozh (P S. 3. No. 6298).
Under Elizabeth, in the draft Code of 1754, batogs were identified for incest in a distant degree of kinship, as well as for adultery and fornication committed by vile people (Projects of 1754, 48, 4250).
Scourges in the 17th century served for reprisal only in family life and among the clergy. For the first time in state laws, we find them since 1696: in Preobrazhensky, Prince Gorchakov beats with a whip instead of a whip (Zhelyabuzhsky: Notes, p. 47). Since then, the decision to "lash" often comes across. Little by little they were replaced by batogs and partly by a whip.
Scourges were punished for the crimes of the Sovereign's words and deeds, for covetousness, for harboring fugitives (P. S. 3. 8926. 1744) and others. For the exorbitant elevation of trade supplies, it was ordered: “to flog in the forest and other rows at a meeting of the oldest people with lashes mercilessly” (P. S. 3. 10023, 1762). In 1708, a fisherman guilty of magic was mercilessly whipped with whips (Esipov: "Witchcraft in Ancient Russia". Ancient and New Russia 1878, vol. 3.) In 1780, Semyon Sorokin made a typo in a report to the Senate; instead of the words: "Blessed and eternally worthy of memory, Peter the Great" wrote "Perth the First". Although he explained that he wrote so through an oversight, the Senate, nevertheless, decided to beat him with whips (A. Bezrodny. R. Starina 1896) "One soldier once told another that he was on guard duty in the palace on the eve of the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna. And so she went out onto the porch and sang the song "Oh, my life, poor life." To these words of a comrade, another soldier objected: " what are you looking at? a woman, a woman, and sings. " They overheard, reported and whipped the soldiers mercilessly with whips (Esipov: "The Sovereign's word and deed." Ancient and New Russia, 1880). In the draft Code of 1754, lashes were appointed for the most important offenses, such as: for a false word and deed, for murder, for the inept writing of royal portraits, etc.
Appeared in the laws and rods. According to the Military and Naval Regulations, this punishment was prescribed only for infants under 15 years old "in order to wean everything from everything in advance."
To relatively light corporal punishment belonged at the beginning of the eighteenth century. introduced by Peter, walking on stakes or mounting on a horse and carrying muskets, pikes, carbines and saddles in front of the formation. In the Military Trials, they are ranked among ordinary corporal punishments and are mentioned along with imprisonment, food with bread and water, batogs, etc. Walking on stakes served as a punishment mainly for penal soldiers; V Peter and Paul Fortress for this purpose, a wooden horse with a sharp back was placed, and knitting needles were stuck next to it and a pole with a chain was placed; - criminals were chained to a chain and put on knitting needles or put on the back of a horse (See section "History of torture").
This does not yet exhaust corporal punishment according to the Peter's laws. Often they simply prescribed “to punish on the body”, “to inflict cruel punishment”. These terms meant the same whip, gauntlets or other tools chosen at the discretion of the executor of justice.
Not limited to physical suffering alone, legislators, starting from the 18th century, also sought to morally disgrace the criminals. According to the decrees of Peter, if someone hit someone on the cheek, he had to be slapped by the executioner in front of the whole company, i.e. a blow of a profos on the cheek (V. Art. Ch. XVII, Art. 145). For false swearing in the hearts, out of service jealousy (V. Art. Ch. II, Art. 7), for false swearing with intent or in a drunken state (V. Art. Ch. II, Art. 8), to a private for failure to appear at the first and the second time for worship (V. Art. Ch. II, Art. 10) it was supposed to carry pikes, carbines and muskets in front of the regiment. Indecent women caught in the regiment, the executioner undressed and drove naked into the street. “No harlots will be tolerated at the regiments, but if they are found, they will be undressed without consideration of persons through a profos and clearly expelled to be” (Military Ar. XX Art. 175). Whether it was a simple bourgeois woman or some important lady who accidentally sinned, it was indifferent to the legislator, he doomed everyone to the same shame.
The bodies of suicides were supposed to be handed over to the executioner, who dragged them by their feet to a dishonorable place for burial (Berner's Textbook of Criminal Law, translated by Neklyudov).
Since that time, branding of criminals has become very popular in our punitive system. Since the time of Peter the Great, everyone who was subjected to a commercial execution and referred to hard labor was usually branded. Since 1703, thieves and robbers who did not commit murders were punished in this way. The unprecedentedly strict law that imposed the death penalty for cutting down a forest was repealed in 1720, and instead of it, they established staining and exile for a century in hard labor for this crime (P. S. 3. No. 3509, 1720). In 1746, a decree prescribed branding all thieves, robbers and other criminals, so that they "were different from other good people, and when ... they make a leak ... those to be caught through that branding may be a convenient way" (P. S. 3. No. 9293, 1746). With the abolition of the death penalty in 1758, the most serious criminals were beaten with a whip, exiled to Siberia for a century and stained (P. S. 3. No. 10086, 1753).
The form of the stigma also changed under Peter. Some time at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th table. they “eagled” the criminals, that is, they imposed the sign of an eagle. Korb says that the Zaporozhye Cossacks had a scorched eagle on their cheeks. But this seal did not last. We see that in 1705 they again began to put the letter "B". Since 1746, four letters V. O. R. b were ousted, and since 1754 they were put on the forehead "B", on the cheeks "O" and "P".
At the beginning of the eighteenth century. no longer branded with red-hot iron. Steel needles were attached to the plates; when imposing signs, the executioner hit the plate, the needles pierced the body of the criminal, and in order for the wound to remain for life, it was rubbed with gunpowder.
In the time of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, Trinity or Senate Square was a common place for executions and reprisals against convicts. Under Biron, they were punished on the Petersburg side, on the square near the Sytnago market. They tortured, however, in different places, for example, in St. Petersburg, executions were sometimes carried out on the Square of the Twelve Colleges (Now the University) and at the Sign.
As we have seen, corporal punishment in Russian law by the beginning of the 18th century had multiplied unusually. They were now appointed not only for important crimes, but for all offenses in general, sparing neither the living nor the dead. Even in those cases where the death penalty was imposed on the criminal, this latter did not exclude any preliminary or subsequent bodily torture or abuse; e.g. for blasphemy, it was necessary to first burn the tongue, for attempted suicide or murder in a duel, the bodies of the executed were dragged by their feet to a dishonorable place, etc.
Finally, the number of corporal punishments according to Russian laws increased even more by the actual personal reprisal of those in power with those whom they found guilty. The highest dignitaries, like sovereign lords, did not hesitate to sometimes resort to such aggravation of already strict orders. For Prince Menshikov, for example, Devier served as an errand boy (later holding the post of St. Petersburg General Police Chief). Having risen to his feet and having reached the rank of lieutenant, he took it into his head to solicit the hand of his sister from the prince. But he, instead of answering, ordered the arrogant groom to be whipped. (Letters, extracts from the letters of the St. Petersburg Police Chief Devier to Prince Menshikov. Rus. Archive 1865).
Peter the Great.
Similar massacres were committed at every turn at that time. The collection of clubs of Peter the Great is known, with which he often punished even the dignitaries themselves.
More than once, Prince Menshikov also experienced the heavy hand of the monarch. Once, because Menshikov dared to dance in a saber, Peter hit his pet so hard that he bled (Korb, p. 102). On another occasion he struck him in the face until he fell dead (Korb p. 173); For untimely advice, the tsar pushed Lefort away with his fist (Korb, p. 105); Peter threw it on the floor and trampled on it with his feet (Korb, p. 92). He gave a slap in the face to one boyar, who only dared to advise in the absence of Peter to leave Sheremetev to manage in Moscow (Korb, p. 151). It happened that in anger the king beat the recalcitrant to death. For example, a court servant paid with his life, who did not have time to take off his hat to the monarch: - he was hit on the head by the famous club (N. A. Popov: “Tatishchev and his time”, p. 541).
The same fate befell one soldier for stealing a piece of copper from a burning church (Sobr. Ist. Ova, p. 339).
The monarch apparently sometimes took special pleasure in dealing with his enemies himself! So, according to Korb, he personally executed 80 archers, forcing the boyar Pletnev to hold the criminals by the hair (Korb, p. 143). The great reformer dealt with his son in cold blood, being himself present and interrogating him during the torture in the Trubetskoy Bastion (On the case of Tsarevich Alexei, see in detail the article “The History of Torture”).
This stern man knew neither pity nor compassion! “Women were flogged under him on an equal basis with men. Jealous of his mistress, the daughter of a senator, justice of the president's college, Count Andrey Artamonov Matveev, Peter nailed her in the attic in Ekateringof and, against the will of her parents, married Rumyantsev ("Ladies of State and maids of honor of the Russian court in the 18th century." R. Old 1840, II) A noble lady from the Troekurov family, implicated in the conspiracy of Tsarevich Alexei, was publicly flogged with a whip (Ustryalov: The History of Peter the Great, vol. 6). In the same case, the daughter of the old Prince Prozorovsky, the wife of Prince Golitsyn, was laid out in a torture yard in Preobrazhensky, her back was bared, surrounded by a hundred soldiers and very painfully beaten with batogs (Ibid.). Without any trial, by one order of the Monarch, not a few noble beauties were subjected to heavy disgrace and flogging. The Empress greatly favored a certain Mons; even a close relationship was suspected between them. Mons was arrested and his head was cut off. Mons's sister, General Balk, suspected of helping her brother, was brought to Senate Square in St. Petersburg, stripped naked and hit 4 times with a whip (Diary of the chamber junker Berchholtz).
Peter did not stand on ceremony with the most beautiful and attractive woman at court - the maid of honor Maria Hamilton. Undoubtedly, Peter endowed her with graces; it is very likely that there was a connection between them; but ... Hamilton got along with the imperial orderly Orlov.
It should be noted that at that time the moneymen at the court were very influential people. They were recruited from the humble, but beautiful and prominent nobles. They corrected the most varied duties: they had to serve at the Sovereign's table, sometimes they performed important assignments, carried out investigations, played the role of executioners, flogged senators and noble nobles with sticks, and also scouted about the actions of governors-general and military commanders. However, they themselves did not avoid the heavy club of the monarch, as can be seen, for example, from the case of the once guilty godfather and orderly of Peter the 1st, Afanasy Danilovich Tatishchev, who was ordered to be mercilessly torn off with a batozh in front of the windows of the palace. Everything was ready for the execution, but Tatishchev took it into his head to get rid of the flogging, and when the cabinet secretary Zamyatin ran out of the palace into the yard, the denytsik grabbed him and shouted: “Where have you stuck yourself, the Sovereign has already asked you several times and is extremely angry; I'm looking for you, go quickly." Zamyatin was brought in. It so happened that Peter was very busy; he barely looked out the window and shouted "to undress." The ministers stood in perplexity; but they did not dare to disobey and began to flog the secretary. The Emperor was in a hurry. He soon shouted "full", not seeing the error. Tatishchev, knowing that sooner or later the weight would open, turned to Catherine, asking for protection. “After all, the Sovereign will find out, he will cut you,” she said in horror, but still promised her petition. And indeed, at a convenient moment, she settled the matter.
And so, the moneymen at the court at that time had great power, and it was not humiliating for a noble lady to get along with such a person, especially if he was young, handsome and was a passionate lover. Hamilton had a child from Orlov. She killed him and, with the help of a maid, hid the traces of the crime. But various rumors began to circulate at court. Orlov interrogated his mistress many times. Every time she denied, attributing the ill health to menstruation. Quite unexpectedly, the whole thing came to light.
The Tsar lost an important paper; he suspected Orlov, called him to him and began to interrogate him. His complete innocence was soon revealed, but on the other hand, a connection with the maid of honor Hamilton was opened. Questioning and torture ensued. On suspicion of killing a baby and stealing jewelry from the Empress, Maria was arrested and tortured twice. The king himself interrogated his former mistress. According to the existing laws, she should have been beheaded. The execution was scheduled for Trinity Square. Hamilton, waiting for a pardon, dressed up in a white silk dress with black ribbons. When the Emperor appeared, she rushed to beg him for mercy; but he whispered something to the executioner, turned away, and the head of the criminal rolled to the ground. Peter picked her up, kissed her, crossed himself and left. This head was put in alcohol and was preserved for a long time in the Academy of Sciences ("Lady-in-waiting Maria Hamilton", M. Semevsuy, Sovremennik 1860 9). This is how the monarch dealt with former mistresses.
Sometimes, for originality or for fun, the great reformer came up with surprisingly strange punishments. He forcibly married one girl to his orderly. She kept avoiding the caresses of her unloved husband under the pretext that her teeth hurt. Peter found out about it. "Does your tooth hurt?" he turned to the woman, “let me cure him,” and pulled her completely healthy tooth(Librovich: "Peter the Great and women").
On the days of the great festivities, everyone was obliged to get drunk, the disobedient were dragged into the senate and forcibly watered almost to the point of losing consciousness (Bsrkhholz: I. pp. 212-213).
In general, Peter did not tolerate any contradiction in anything. He loved to force the will of his close associates and did not hesitate to deliver them various physical and moral torments. So, after the cruel reprisal against Gagarin, he invited all his relatives to the festival, and they were obliged to come under pain of severe punishment (Berchholtz: I, p. 144).
The monarch was infuriated when his associates dared to express their tastes and desires. And so, to a dignitary who could not stand vinegar, he once ordered a whole bottle of this liquid to be poured into his mouth (Valishevsky: "Peter the Great"). Old Golovin would never want to dress up as jesters and smear himself with soot; the demon and put on the Neva ice (Semevsky: “Word and deed under Peter in the 18th century” p. 199 note first). Science and Literature", pp. 9, 10).
Despite, however, cruel bullying of people, Peter I can hardly be called a sadist like Ivan the Terrible. True, the reprisals of the Great Transformer are terrible, his amusements are sometimes disgusting and cynical, but such was the age, such were morals. “Peter adopted a manner of dressing, eating, entertaining himself as he considered the most suitable for him, which, by the very fact that it was suitable for him, should be suitable for everyone. This was his mode of interpretation, his autocratic power and his role as a reformer. Vinegar for him is part of the state laws, and the one who ... refused this seasoning, or, like others, from cheese, oysters, Provence oil, Peter never missed the opportunity to stuff it with it ”(Valishevsky:“ Peter the Great ”, p. 78 -79).
True, he did not stand on ceremony with women, personally tortured his former mistresses, ordered them to be whipped with whips, batogs, and cats. But Peter hardly enjoyed it. Perhaps he took revenge on the beauties for treason, quenched his jealousy, or simply punished and corrected in his own way. The emperor was too rough and healthy in nature, he was too immersed in his affairs to indulge in the refined emotions of sadists.
Horrible act of his with the prince. But here, too, the merciless reformer acted simply, convincingly extinguishing all his father's feelings in himself, as if it were unnecessary sentimentality. Everywhere he only took revenge on his enemies and eradicated confusion, life may involuntarily reveal to his contemporaries the face of bloodthirsty ferocity. It was a kind of politics: to disgrace others...
We also had our own Lady Hamilton in Russia. Like the famous Emma Hamilton, Admiral Nelson's lover, she was a rare beauty, she was also surrounded by men who can safely be called the makers of history, and, finally, the Russian Lady Hamilton, like the Englishwoman, was very unlucky in life. But this is where the analogies end.
maid of honor to her majesty
Maria Hamilton lived a century earlier than her English namesake. She came from a Russified Scottish family that settled in Russia during the time of Ivan the Terrible. Her father was Willem Hamilton, who was related to Artamon Matveev, the tutor of Natalya Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the Great. However, officials of the Scottish surname "Hamilton" wrote in the Russian manner "Gamontov", "Gamentov". Therefore, according to the documents, our heroine passes as Maria Danilovna Gamentova.
From a good family, a relative of the close associates of the emperor's mother, and even a rare beauty - it is not surprising that at the age of 15 or 16, Maria ended up at court as a maid of honor "Her Imperial Majesty Ekaterina Alekseevna."
And it is not at all surprising that the autocrat himself soon noticed the beautiful, dexterous, cheerful Mary.
In the "bed register" of the emperor
Peter I was a great hunter for the female. According to contemporaries, he even kept a kind of "bed registry", where he included his "official" metres. His wife Ekaterina Alekseevna looked at her husband's pranks through her fingers. She was well aware that her position as empress was rather precarious. The Livonian peasant woman, “portomoy”, what’s there, a convoy girl who soared to the top of power in the Russian Empire at the whim of her crowned spouse, at the same whim could at any moment be where she came from. And therefore, she did not suit her husband with scenes of jealousy, and even welcomed the “meters”, giving them gifts and court positions. So Maria Hamilton became the first maid of honor.
Royal batman
However, the emperor's hobbies did not last long. After all his amorous adventures, he invariably returned to his "dear friend Katenka." This is what happened to Mary. However, she did not stay alone for long, and soon began a stormy romance with the royal batman Ivan Orlov.
The imperial couple went abroad in 1716, Maria Hamilton and Ivan Orlov were among the retinues. As they say, during this trip, Orlov lost interest in Mary. To return the feelings of her lover, Maria began to ... steal money and valuables from the Empress for him. But this did not help either: the lovers often quarreled, Orlov even beat Maria.
But the thefts from the royal chambers were not Mary's worst crime. She became pregnant three times and got rid of children three times. Twice she poisoned the fetus with some kind of potion, and gave birth to a third child and strangled it with her own hands. However, all this for the time being managed to be kept secret.
The king, according to old memory, as they said at court, sometimes walked to his "metreska" of Scottish origin, but this hardly pleased Mary. Further events will show that she really loved her Ivan in earnest.
Wanted
Everything was revealed, as it happens, quite by accident. Peter lost some document, in anger he called a batman to him. He did not understand what, in fact, the matter fell on his knees, and laid out everything he knew about the tricks of his mistress.
Maria was immediately taken under arrest, and a search began, that is, in modern terms, "investigative actions."
A search in those days without torture was never carried out. Even if a person voluntarily confessed to everything, he was still tortured, because it was believed that truth could not be achieved without a rack and a whip. Mary was also tortured. She confessed to both the theft and infanticide, but firmly stood on the fact that Orlov had nothing to do with it, that she stole from the queen and got rid of the children without his knowledge.
execution
The sovereign sentenced "Marya, the girl Gamentov" to be executed by decapitation. Both queens asked for her, and the wife of the emperor, and the dowager queen Praskovya (wife of John V, brother and co-ruler of Peter I), however, Peter was adamant. Historians believe that the reason for such severity is the fact that shortly before that, the sovereign issued a decree according to which “disgraceful children” (that is, those born out of wedlock) were not infringed on their rights, as has been done so far. On the contrary, hospitals were organized where unlucky girls could give birth in complete secrecy under the supervision of experienced midwives and leave the child in an orphanage. Thus, Peter took care of new recruits, new workers, as they would say today, about the demographic situation. But there is another version: one of the children destroyed by Mary could well be from Peter himself.
She appeared in a white dress adorned with black ribbons, and was so graceful and touching that Peter came out to meet her, gave her his hand and helped her up to the scaffold. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, the crowd froze in the hope of royal mercy. Peter said something quietly to Mary, even, as they say, hugged her, and then ... pushed her to the executioner.
When the execution was over, Peter took Mary's head, kissed her on the mouth, and then began to tell the people nearby about the anatomical structure of the human neck, while demonstrating the artery and vertebrae of the unfortunate Hamilton. Having completed his terrible lecture, Peter once again kissed the dead lips, threw his head to the ground and left.
It is said that the head of Maria Hamilton was kept in alcohol and kept in the Kunstkamera for a long time. But this, apparently, is nothing more than a legend.
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Everyone must be well aware of the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". For many decades, its reproductions were included in the appendices of history textbooks, were reproduced in calendars and art albums.
The image of the Sovereign-reformer, who planted civilization with fire and sword in a wild, uneducated country, was sung by historians - Masons both before the October Revolution of 1917 and after it. The suppression of the Streltsy rebellion in line with such an interpretation of national history was considered the apotheosis of the statist instincts of the young Tsar, who shed the blood of stupid clerical fanatics in the name of the highest interests of the country.
How justified is such a view of the events of that time?
The glory of the winners of the Turks, which the entire Russian army rightfully acquired after the second Azov campaign, was reaped only by the "amusing" regiments of the young Sovereign, who returned with him. For their meeting in Moscow, even wooden triumphal gates were built. The Streltsy regiments, having endured all the hardships of military everyday life, remained in the defeated Azov as a garrison of the fortress; in addition to guard and sentinel service, they also carried out numerous construction works during the restoration of city fortifications.
The immediate reason for the indignation of the archers was the news of the intention to transfer 4 regiments to the city of Velikiye Luki to cover the western border. In addition to the non-payment of the due monetary allowance, the archers considered the requirement of the command to carry guns in their hands to be especially outrageous, since there were not enough draft horses in the regiments. In March 1698, a group of 175 people, soldiers of those same 4 regiments, left the location of the garrison and went to Moscow to seek the truth.
No one was waiting for them in the capital. Peter the Great was in England, and in his absence no one wanted to deal with archers. In an effort to win at least someone to their side, the archers turned to Princess Sophia for support. The latter also could not help them, but in the future, the very fact of such an appeal served as evidence of the existence of some kind of extensive conspiracy aimed at overthrowing Peter the Great.
In the end, under the threat of exile, the archers were forced to return to their regiments.
That. the conflict was not resolved, but rather, only driven deep into the depths for the time being. He broke through after some time, when the regiments refused to obey their commanders, instead of them they elected 4 people from each regiment and, under the leadership, went to the capital to apply for the sovereign's mercy. The archers were from Moscow, their families lived in Moscow, and the rebels only wanted to achieve compliance with the usual norms of service: payment of allowances, dissolution from home after the end of the war, etc. They were not recruits and their demands did not go beyond common sense or military traditions.
The indignation of the archers occurred on June 6, 1698, and on June 18 they were met at the New Jerusalem Monastery by an army led by A. S. Shein and P. Gordon (2300 people in the "amusing" regiments and a noble cavalry militia). The archers had no intention of fighting; they perceived the same voivode Aleksey Semenovich Shein as "their own", since he was a participant in both Azov campaigns and in the last of them led a land group. At the very first shots of the "amusing" artillery, the archers dispersed; the cavalry rounded up the fleeing people for trial. Shein and Romodanovsky conducted an inquiry right in the field and immediately hanged 57 archers, who were found guilty of the confusion and calls to disobey the regimental commanders.
On this, in fact, the story of the Streltsy rebellion of 1698 ends. What happened next has more to do with psychiatry than with the history of military affairs or political investigation in Russia, since it clearly characterizes the inadequacy of the worldview that Peter the Great discovered throughout his life.
The tsar returned from a trip abroad at the end of August and at first, as if, he demonstrated complete satisfaction with the work of Shein and Romodanovsky in defeating the archers. In any case, he did not seem to demonstrate any intentions to arrange a special trial. The young Sovereign showed great enthusiasm in trimming the beards of the boyars; in any case, he devoted two evenings in a row to this at the "assembly" (that is, a drinking bout) with Generallisimo Shein (the latter, by the way, was the first generallisimo of the Russian army). After Peter the Great got tired of shaving his beard, he, to the surprise of those around him, was carried away by the idea of punishing the archers. This is exactly how Patrick Gordon, who was a witness and a direct participant in those events, described in his diary the emergence of the idea of a new investigation of the Streltsy rebellion.
The retinue thought that the drunken Tsar would oversleep and forget about everything in the morning. But this did not happen. In the morning, Peter the Great went to survey the economy of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, which was engaged in detective work throughout Russia, in order to get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhether this institution could demonstrate the necessary efficiency in the forthcoming work.
The Sovereign was not satisfied with what he saw: he ordered that additional torture chambers be immediately equipped. In total, 14 of them were built. This was more than the number of employees of the Order entitled to investigate independently (in total, there were 10 such employees under Fyodor Yuryevich Romodanovsky: two dka and eight clerks). In Preobrazhensky, in fact, for the first time an investigative conveyor was organized: while in one torture chamber the clerk was interrogating and compiling a protocol, in the other at that time they began torture; The deacon moved from cell to cell without stopping anywhere.
Peter the Great demonstrated the seriousness of his intentions by starting the investigation with an interrogation of his hated sister Sophia. The princess was tortured - up on the rack and flogged with a whip. The interrogation was informal; no protocol was drawn up, and the fact that it took place at all was disputed by Russian liberal historians, who tend to portray Peter the Great as a wise and just sovereign. Only the diary of Patrick Gordon, published a century and a half later, shed light on these events. The cruelty of the "great" Monarch towards his relatives anticipated the massacre of Peter over his own son two decades later. It will seem surprising, but Tsarevna Sofya steadfastly endured the interrogation with passion, without showing a single word against the archers. She did not even acknowledge the fact of meeting with them, although the latter, by the way, is quite reliable. The king was extremely annoyed by the persistence of his sister, did not believe her at all and ordered Sophia to be imprisoned in a monastery. Another sister of the Monarch, Princess Martha, was subjected to a similar imprisonment - all of whose guilt boiled down to the fact that she was a deeply religious woman and shared the views of Sophia in everything. The sisters were separated: Sophia remained in Moscow, and Martha was taken to Vladimir.
In September, general arrests of Moscow archers began. The hunt for them received a loud name: "the great detective." Its greatness can be recognized only in relation to the scope of the arrests, but by no means the complexity of the investigation. The archers stationed in the capital lived openly and did not think of hiding from anyone; as a result of raids carried out in the streltsy settlements, almost 4 thousand people were arrested during the week. All of them got "on the assembly line" in the Preobrazhensky order.
The torture of archers often began even before the investigator and secretary appeared in the torture chamber, who were supposed to conduct interrogation and protocol. The accused (if this concept can be applied in the present case) were offered to give an account of "their own faults"; since no one felt guilty of anything, they whipped him up on the rack or applied red-hot tongs to the body. The interrogation was carried out quickly and energetically and usually did not take more than a quarter of an hour. The sophisticated tortures that the participants in the uprising of Stepan Razin were once subjected to (pouring ice water on the crown of the head, etc.) were not used in the present case precisely because they required a lot of time.
After several energetic jerks on the rack and 10-15 blows with a whip, the interrogated person received quite serious injuries (torn tendons, pain shock, for older people - a heart attack or stroke) and the interrogation was terminated due to the physical impossibility of continuing it. By the end of the interrogation, most of the archers had already confessed both to their own intentions to overthrow Tsar Peter Alekseevich, and to hatred of foreigners. This was quite enough to convict the suspect.
People slandered themselves guided - as it may seem strange - by common sense: in view of the senselessness of proving something to the executioner and in order not to aggravate their own suffering. However, the history of the "great" detective knows examples of absolutely amazing stamina of the accused, when they, already severely mutilated, had to be taken to torture five - six and even seven times (!), But these examples prove only the exceptional physical endurance of individual people and their innocence ; for the bloodthirsty Monarch, this stamina was just another irritating factor that had to be eliminated.
In its final form, the official version of the Streltsy revolt looked like this: the rebels intended to overthrow Peter the Great and enthrone Princess Sophia, after which they set fire to the German settlement and destroy all foreigners in Moscow; the conspirators kept in touch with each other through a certain Ofimka Kondratiev, the host of Princess Sophia, the widow of three archers. By the role women played in it, it is just right to call it not a shooter's rebellion, but a woman's. No data was received that really convicted Tsarevna Sophia and Martha in collusion with the archers (they apparently did not exist at all), however, this did not at all alleviate the fate of the archers.
Peter the Great carried out the first mass execution of people tormented by torture on September 30, 1698. A column of 200 people was withdrawn from the Preobrazhensky order and escorted to the Execution Ground in Moscow. When the convicts passed under the windows of the sovereign's palace (also located in the village of Preobrazhensky), Peter the Great jumped out into the street and ordered to chop off the heads of the archers right on the road. Five of them had their heads cut off on the spot. The savagery and senselessness of this reprisal against people already doomed to death in an hour or two, does not lend itself to rational explanation at all; a believer will call this obsession madness, a psychiatrist - psychosis, but regardless of the point of view, one must agree that on this day Peter the Great showed himself to be a man, certainly terrible and inadequate in his reactions.
After the execution of five people, randomly snatched from the column, Peter the Great allowed the movement to continue and he himself rushed along with his retinue to the Execution Ground. There, with a huge gathering of people, the Sovereign undertook to personally cut off the heads of the archers. His retinue was obliged to take part in this; only foreigners refused, motivating their unwillingness by the fear of incurring the hatred of the Russian common people.
The execution on September 30 dragged on for more than 2 hours, which caused displeasure of the Monarch, who loved speed in everything and fell into depression from any prolonged tension.
Therefore, in order to speed up the executions, from now on it was decided to use not chopping blocks, but logs and lay the convicts on them not one at a time, but as long as the length of the log would get.
At the next mass execution, which followed on October 11, 1698, they did just that. On two long ship pines, up to 50 people laid their necks at the same time; the executioners had to stand on the bodies of the executed. 144 archers were executed in three steps. The drunken Monarch was tired of waving the ax himself and he ordered those who wished to be called out from the crowd. Many agreed to be voluntary executioners. The execution turned into a grand show; the crowd was poured vodka for free, "drink - I don't want to"!
The next day - October 12, 1698 - another, the most massive execution took place: on this day, the heads of 205 archers were cut off.
Finally, on October 13, a new act of diabolical bacchanalia. On this day, another 141 archers were executed. As in previous days, volunteers called out from the crowd, who, for a royal gift and out of their own passion, agreed to become executioners. Peter the Great wanted to share with the people his responsibility for unprecedented murder. Vodka flowed like a river on Red Square, drunken crowds noisily expressed devotion and love to their Sovereign.
Still dissatisfied with the execution of almost 800 people, but already fed up with the mechanical chopping off of heads, the sovereign tyrant decided to give this procedure a little more solemnity. Since early snow fell in the autumn of 1698, Peter the Great decided to take the executed to the Execution Ground in a black sleigh, entwined with black ribbons, in which the archers were supposed to. sit in pairs with lit candles in their hands. Brown horses and drivers in black sheepskin coats, according to the thought of the highest director, made even greater horror with their appearance.
It took three days to prepare the necessary entourage, and on October 17, 1698, the series of executions continued. On this day, 109 people were executed. The next day, 65 archers were executed, and on October 19, 106.
Peter went to Voronezh and the persecution of the archers stopped; everyone understood the absurdity of what was happening. The head of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, boyar Fedor Yuryevich Romodanovsky, revered by official historical science as a rare sadist and murderer, in the absence of Peter the Great (November - December 1698) did not execute a single archer, although he had such a right. During this time, he sent more than 600 people to hard labor, but not a single one on the chopping block. Explanation here m. b. one thing - Romodanovsky perfectly understood the delusional nature of the official version of the Streltsy rebellion and did not want to stain himself with the blood of people in whose guilt he did not believe.
Returning in January 1699 from a trip to Voronezh, Peter the Great was extremely annoyed by the cessation of executions. Apparently, he believed that he had not yet sufficiently frightened his subjects with his ferocity.
In January - February 1699, another 215 archers were executed. Unlike those executed in the fall, these people were hanged. On the wall surrounding the Novodevichy Convent in Moscow, gallows were erected, on which the unfortunate were hung. Princess Sophia was imprisoned in the monastery; executed, according to the plan of the Autocratic executioner, by their appearance d. b. to frighten her and the inhabitants of the monastery and warn them against new conspiracies. The entire rest of the winter and the month of March (until the onset of heat) the bodies of the executed remained on the walls.
There were many conspiracies in Russia; many conspirators were executed at different times, but no one, except for the Bolsheviks and the Tatars, reached such blasphemy as a deliberate insult to Orthodox shrines. In this the young Sovereign - a reformer can be satisfied: he is on a par with the most vicious enemies of historical Russia - foreigners and gentiles.
From September 1698 to February 1699, 1,182 archers were executed, almost one in three of those involved in the investigation. More than 600 people were sent to Siberia, another 2,000 people were forcibly sent from the capital to serve in the provincial archery regiments (they were finally destroyed as a branch of the army in 1705).
What is the fate of the unintentional victims of the "streltsy revolt"? The Tsar's sisters - Sophia and Martha - never left the monasteries in which they were kept in prison. Sophia (during tonsure she took the name Susanna) died in captivity in 1707; Marfa (during tonsure - Margarita) - in 1704
What happened to the heroes of the suppression of the "streltsy rebellion"? Generallisimo Alexei Shein survived the last of the executed archers by exactly one year: he died on February 12, 1700 at the age of 37. His comrade-in-arms, a valiant Scot who changed three masters in his lifetime, Patrick Gordon, died even earlier - on November 29, 1699. The circumstances of the martyrdom of Peter the Great are well known. There were many terrible crimes on the conscience of this Monarch (an essay on the circumstances of the murder of Peter's own son will be posted on our website), but the massacre of the archers stands alone in this gloomy list.
For some reason, none of these people feel sorry for: neither Shein, nor Gordon, nor - even more so! - Petra. It is a pity for the country and the people that they are doomed by the historical fate to endure the most difficult trials born in the heads of tyrant rulers.