"Officials take bribes at every opportunity, viciously and faint-heartedly, lives luxuriously and above means." No, this is not a thesis from the statement of the modern extra-parliamentary opposition. Before us is a quote from a letter from His Serene Highness Prince Grigory Potemkin, addressed to Count Alexei Orlov.
Mysterious finds
In this letter, His Serene Highness describes the state of the "vertical of power" during the reign of Catherine II on the eve of the Pugachev revolt. Many readers remember the uprising led by Yemelyan Pugachev thanks to the story of A. S. Pushkin's "The Captain's Daughter". It is interesting that both Pushkin himself and his contemporary, the writer Nikolai Polevoy, undertook to write the history of the Pugachev rebellion (Pushkin even received an advance payment of 50 thousand rubles from the tsar through Benckendorff), had access to the archives - to the protocols of the investigation of Yemelyan and his closest associates … But rummaging through the archival dust, they apparently discovered something that discouraged them from continuing to work. True, some of what was written with the pens of Catherine's officials at the beginning of the 19th century was still printed in the printing house.
Vasily Perov. & quot; The Pugachev Court & quot;. 1879 year. Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.
All Russian emperors and grand dukes from Paul I to Nicholas II commanded to consider the Peasant War of 1773-1775 under the leadership of Pugachev as the fruit of the agitation of an illiterate but resolute Cossack, the people's response to the excesses of the nobility and bureaucracy. But the popular protest with spears and cudgels was such that it had to be pacified by summoning Field Marshal A. V. Suvorov. In Soviet times, the Pugachevism was declared the result of the growing class struggle of the peasantry and Cossacks against the yoke of feudalism. Both tsarist and Soviet historians were afraid to name two other reasons: the illegal seizure of the throne by the German princess and the struggle of the illegitimate children of Elizabeth Petrovna (that is, the blood grandsons of Peter I) for the throne. Do not forget also about the intervention of French and Polish agents in the events in the Urals and the Volga region with the prospect of changing the owners of the Winter Palace.
Elizabeth II
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This is how the woman who went down in history as Princess Tarakanova presented herself to her foreign patrons. A number of researchers, having compared the facts, consider her to be the daughter of Queen Elizabeth Petrovna and her morganatic husband, Count Alexei Razumovsky. That is, on the maternal side, this girl may have been the granddaughter of Peter I. And she had no less, if not more, rights to the throne than the widow of Emperor Peter III. But who can say for sure if she also had one or more brothers?
In October 1774, from Venice (far from the Volga), Elizabeth II wrote a letter to the Grand Vizier (Chief Minister) of the Turkish Sultan with a warning: not to make peace with diplomats from St. Petersburg. Say, “the son of Razumovsky” (as she calls Pugachev) is heroic on the Volga, soon “everything will change”. The Grand Vizier receives this letter and delays the negotiations. Isn't it a strange attitude of the minister to the letters of an insignificant adventurer? And even more surprising is the fact that there were many resurrected "empires of Peter III".
Pugachev's predecessors
A little has passed since the accession of Catherine II to the throne, when a message came that in the Voronezh province the priest served in the church a service "in the health of the miraculously saved Emperor Peter Fedorovich."
In St. Petersburg, they were worried, they began to find out - what and how. And soon interesting facts emerged. In 1765, the fugitive soldier Gavrila Kremnev declared himself "the miraculously escaped Tsar Peter Fedorovich." He was caught and exiled to the mines of Nerchinsk. Soon there were other "self-styled autocrats" there: the fugitive soldier Chernyshev and even the mysterious Muslim Aslanbekov (Catherine's investigators for some reason recorded him in the protocol as an Armenian). In 1769, the fugitive soldier Mamykin, who was heading to the governor as Peter III, was caught on the way to Astrakhan. He was exposed and sent to hard labor. But the line of impostors did not end there.
Arrest the thief
Back in 1734, the Volga Cossack army was formed from the Don Cossacks "to defend the Tsaritsyn line from Tsaritsyn to Kamyshin." In the fall of 1771, the Cossacks of the Volga army murmured: they had not been paid their salaries for a long time, and more than 500 Cossack families were moved to the North Caucasus to guard the line near Mozdok. The remaining 540 families could not ensure the protection of the lands, and the troops began to recruit volunteers for the legion teams - from where they would have to, if only they were Orthodox and fit for service.
And in January 1772, the fugitive servant of Count Vorontsov Fedot Bogomolov from the village of Spassky Saransk district arrived at the assembly point. He called himself the Don Cossack Fedot Ivanovich Kazin. And along with him, the real Don Cossack Spiridon Ivanov enrolled in the legion of the Volga, but under the name of the Cossack of the village of Berezyanskaya Spiridon Dolotin. Moreover, the first was, as it were, a senior, and the second secretary with him. One evening in the tavern, Bogomolov-Kazin introduced himself to the drunken villagers of the village as Emperor Peter III.
“The original image of the rebel and deceiver Emelka Pugachev.” Second half of the 1770s.
The mistrustful drinking companions sent for the Cossacks Marusenok and Luchinkin, who had been to the capital and had once seen the real tsar. Having met with the "risen one", both "witnesses" said evasively:
- Although this confessed person is different from the former, however, it may be that, as many years have passed, he has changed.
That was enough! Right there the Cossacks gathered a circle, swore allegiance to the "sovereign" and began to arrest their officers. One of them - Stepan Savelyev podgesaul - was not taken aback, hit with all his might in the cheekbone of the "sovereign" and ordered the Cossacks: "Arrest the thief!"
dress rehearsal
According to the decree of the Military Collegium of April 2, 1772, "thief Bogomolov" was to be publicly whipped, ripped out of his nostrils and, together with secretary Ivanov-Dolotin, shackled and sent to eternal hard labor at the Nerchinsk factories.
It didn't end there. The chronicles did not keep details of whipping and pulling out nostrils, but in the Tsaritsyn prison, where the convicts were waiting for a transfer to Nerchinsk, they sat without shoes. And they talked with the guard team under the command of Corporal Vasiliev. He allowed the local priest Nikifor Grigoriev to confess to the prisoners … And soon the priest walked around Tsaritsyn with the words: "The legitimate sovereign is imprisoned in the Tsaritsyn prison!" And the corporal's guard somehow imperceptibly turned into the personal guard of the "sovereign". In Tsaritsyn, Cossacks and peasants began to gather at the prison.
On June 26, 1772, the Cossack officers loyal to the oath ordered to disperse the "unauthorized meeting" at the prison gates. After that, the "troublesome prisoners" were secretly taken to Kazan, and on August 9, under great secrecy, they were sent to Nerchinsk. But they never arrived there. There is a note in the archives: Bogomolov-Kazin died on the way. Or maybe they just covered up the escape of "Peter III"? One gets the impression that the pseudo-Cossack Bogomolov-Kazin is a dress rehearsal of a certain project. And soon Emelyan Pugachev appeared at the Yaik (Ural) Cossacks. Or a man hiding behind his name, like the mysterious Bogomolov-Kazin among the Volga people.
Who benefits from?
After the defeat of the Pugachev uprising, investigators revealed a lot of interesting details. We are used to considering (based on Pushkin's fiction) Pugachev as a completely illiterate person. But here is an extract from the transcript of the interrogation by the investigators of the dragoon ensign Mikhail Shvanovich (possibly the prototype of Pushkin's traitor Shvabrin): “Pugachev asked me if I could write in Swedish? I, wanting to deceive him, wrote in German. He looked and asked - why am I deceiving him? Then I wrote letters to the governors in German several times, he signed them while reading them."
& quot; Execution of Pugachev & quot;. Engraving from the painting by A. I. Sharlemania. Mid-19th century.
Isn't Pugachev too educated for an illiterate Don Cossack: instantly distinguishes a Swedish manuscript from a German one, reads and signs in German? His army has 96 guns of various calibers with experienced servants, French and Polish military advisers, he is supplied with weapons and gunpowder from the Ural factories, Elizabeth II knows about his victories in Venice. Under the banners of Pugachev, a cadre corps of 15 thousand experienced in military affairs Cossacks and soldiers who ran over to him.
By the way, about the banners. Detachment of General I. I. Michelson, who captivated Pugachev, captures at his headquarters the banners of the Holstein dragoon regiments, disbanded in 1762, which were once the most loyal troops to Peter III. Where did Pugachev get the Holstein banners? Is this all too implausible for an illiterate upstart?
The Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev certainly existed. But next to him was someone who left his Headquarters, after which the "Pugachevites" began to suffer defeat. Perhaps it was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth Petrovna, who, relying on the help of the French, was waiting for the right moment? Why was the project "Emperor Peter III - Pugachev" closed by secret customers? Probably because the process of "popular anger" has become uncontrollable. It's one thing to change Catherine to Elizabeth. It is quite another to allow the coming to power of the Russian tsar, the abolition of serfdom, and people's self-government. Why does Europe need such transformations in Russia? And invisible but powerful someone gave the order. Yet it was easier to deal with the German impostor than with the people's Russian tsar. Therefore, the masters of European politics allowed Alexei Orlov to take Princess Tarakanova out of Europe. She was no longer needed, like the "son of Razumovsky" - Pugachev.
And the reasons and the main participants in those events that we call the Pugachevism turn out to be completely different. Prince Potemkin in the same letter asked Alexei Orlov, assessing the situation: “Have you heard about Pugachev? Isn't the French court shitty?"
These are the surprises lurking on the dusty yellowed archive pages and in the investigation protocols printed in the printing house.
Source: "Secrets of the XX century"