Ivan Isaevich Bolotnikov is a rather mysterious person in Russian history. His life is like an adventure romance. And he was, apparently, a thawed adventurer. It is interesting to read about the adventures of such restless natures, lying with a book in their hands on the sofa, but to be in their shoes, perhaps, few will agree.
When was born - no one knows
The exact date of birth of Bolotnikov is unknown. Why is there an exact date. Unknown and approximate. In reference books sometimes only the year is indicated - 1565. In general, it is not very clear who he really was. There are several versions. One by one, he was a slave who fled to the Cossacks, and there were captured by the Turks. According to another, he was a Cossack chieftain. According to the third, which has the greatest circulation, Bolotnikov was still one of the boyar children. This means that he was a nobleman. However, from the very impoverished nobles. Therefore, he sold his military skills to anyone. As they say in clever books, he sold his saber to someone who was famous and rich. But Bolotnikov got into history, of course, not because he was a mercenary. And for the fact that during the Russian Troubles he raised a riot that united nobles, Cossacks and peasants and turned into a natural civil war. During the Soviet era, his rebellion was compared to the actions of Emelyan Pugachev and Stepan Razin.
Adventurer by nature
As mentioned above, Bolotnikov was an adventurous personality type. At least, information of this nature has come down to us today: Ivan Bolotnikov earned his living by serving in military slaves with Prince Andrei Teletyavsky. Despite the offensive word "slave" in modern times, there was nothing offensive in her service. Battle slaves are not disenfranchised serfs.
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And they did not belong to the yard. Rather, they are bodyguards. It was satisfying at such a service. But it's dangerous. Anyway, it is said - an adventurer. In short, Bolotnikov fled from his prince to the Don Cossacks. And there his soul unfolded. He participated in campaigns against all sorts of "Basurman", which in those days were nogays and Crimean Tatars.
I walked and walked until I reached it. In one of these campaigns, Bolotnikov was captured. To the very Crimean Tatars. Who, people of business, do not starve him or kill him, but sell him to the Turks.
Why does he need these galleys
In fact, no one, of course, asked Bolotnikov if he wanted to go rowing to the galleys. Gave the oar in hand - row. Rowed for several years. But then an opportunity arose: that galley entered into battle with some Christian ship. Either German, or some other. And that fight was lost. Bolotnikov was released. And he … no, he did not return to his homeland. He either went himself, or he was sent to Venice. Where he lived for several years in a German commercial courtyard. What he did is not known for certain. It is only known that he learned German there. Well, as you know? It seems to have learned.
Home! You can profit there …
In Venice, news reached Bolotnikov that something was restless in Russia. God knows what is happening! There is something with Tsar Dmitry and his salvation, something completely incomprehensible is going on. The heart of the adventurer leaped. And he went to Sambor. Where was Yadviga, the wife of Yuri Mnishek, hiding a former henchman of False Dmitry I, a certain Mikhail Molchanov. He received Bolotnikov, introduced himself as a miraculously saved prince and sent him to Putivl with a personal letter to Prince Grigory Shakhovsky. At the same time, it was as if Bolotnikov was told something from the category of the now famous phrase "There is no money, but you are holding on." Say, I can't give much, but here, dear companion-in-arms, thirty ducats. And here's a saber and a cloak. And as soon as you come to Shakhovskoy, he will give you good money from my bounty from my treasury and make you a governor over a thousand people. And then go. And deal with my subjects, who broke their oath. And then I myself do not have enough time.
Mission start
Further, the story developed as follows. Bolotnikov with the letter of False Dmitry number two actually arrived in Putivl, where he received an army from Prince Shakhovsky. Not some pitiful thousand people, but twelve thousand motivated fighters. Allegedly. With this army Bolotnikov went to the Komarnitskaya volost, spreading the “good news”. Like, brothers, I saw Tsar Dmitry himself. Zhivaga. In short, he began to stir up the people, who had already lost their heads from all kinds of wild and hitherto unseen events. Vasily Shuisky did not doze. He sent an army to the adversary. Rather, a detachment. The detachment, as he realized that the foe had more troops, retreated home. So, in fact, a natural civil war began. That is to say, a riot.
With fire and sword
Bolotnikov moved forward. The cities and towns on his way, one after another, recognized the power of Tsar False Dmitry II and sent more and more detachments of fighters to help the Tsar's voivode. The army grew. The militia from Lithuania, commanded by Istoma Pashkov, joined him. People believed that False Dmitry II would give them both freedom and land. Of course, they did not suspect, and they could not even suspect that no one cares about their dreams, that they are only, in a modern way, cannon fodder, thrown to the slaughter for the interests of Poland and Venice. What the "tsarist voivode" did in his campaign is described in the "Karamzin Chronograph". People, at the instigation of the enemy, carried out mass executions in the cities and towns of "Ukrainian" and Polish, and in Seversk. The boyar and the governor were stoned to death. And other people were not spared. Someone more prosperous - robbed, some were thrown from the towers, crucified on the city walls, hung by the legs.
Present the king
So Bolotnikov with his army reached Moscow itself, stopping in the village of Kolomenskoye. It is only seven miles from her. The number of his troops continued to grow. The situation was menacing and frightening. And so much so that Muscovites were already ready to surrender to the mercy of the "warriors of the sovereign." But there was a question: they really wanted to see the king. Show them, they say, Dmitry Ivanovich. Present the king! But the king was not there. And it couldn't be.
Looking for a double
Bolotnikov waited in vain for "Dmitry" near Moscow. By that time, the Poles had simply not yet found another impostor to the Russian throne. One who would agree to all Polish plans, including a military adventure against Turkey. There was, of course, Mikhail Molchanov. But he was too well known in the same Moscow. And for Dmitry it would not have worked. A person who at least somehow resembled Dmitry, or rather, False Dmitry I at least a figure, was found only at the beginning of 1607 on the territory of present-day Belarus. Then he was presented to the people in Vitebsk. And on January 8, he drew up a manifesto to Vasily Shuisky.
Confusion and vacillation
Everyone knows that the army should not sit idle for long. He needs to either fight or go home to the places, so to speak, of permanent deployment. In those days, this meant going home. In the army of Bolotnikov, confusion and vacillation also began from long idleness. In addition, the army was heterogeneous. Part of it was made up of boyar children and noblemen, part - commoners, part - Cossacks.
And their leaders were different. Some were ruled by Pashkov and the Lyapunov brothers. Others have Bolotnikov himself. In the end, first the Lyapunov detachments, and then Pashkov, went over to the side of Shuisky. And besides them, people began to approach Moscow to help them, realizing that Bolotnikov would never introduce anyone to them.
An inglorious end
Bolotnikov tried to go all-in by storming the Simonov Monastery. But he was thrown away. He left with heavy losses to Kaluga. And sat down on the defensive. There he was lucky to defeat part of the Moscow troops. And he again went to Moscow, having gathered about thirty-eight thousand people. But the river was broken. He went to Tula, where he was besieged by the army of Shuisky. Finally, on October 10, 1607, the besieged surrendered. Bolotnikov was first exiled to the north - to Kargopol. But then they decided that such a person could run away and make a storm again. Therefore … they gouged out his eyes and drowned him in the hole. It was already in the winter of 1608. So the story of the Russian adventurer Ivan Isaevich Bolotnikov ended ingloriously.
Was it really so?
As it really was, no one really knows. There are still disputes over the biography of Bolotnikov. Many even doubt that he was really executed, and did not go to the service of the winner. Dark Ages. Dark story.
Author: Mark Voron
