Alena Arzamasskaya is an atypical character in our history. She is pompously called “Russian Jeanne d'Arc” for organizing the uprising and a similar death.
Alena's life cannot be called happy. She worked hard and became a widow early. After burying her husband, the woman remarried - to God, becoming a nun. Alena helped the oppressed peasants and sincerely worried about them with all her soul. And when the uprising of Stepan Razin broke out, the nun sided with him. Throughout the year, she - the chieftain - resisted the tsarist troops.
This is the place for old people
By the age of 59, Prince Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov had achieved a lot. As the eldest son of the voivode Alexei Grigorievich, he was not lost in the shadow of his famous grandfather and father. The first - Grigory Ivanovich - who served Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov - was nicknamed the Devil for his success in the military field. The father, who became the Imp, managed to swear allegiance to False Dmitry I, become a brother-in-law to Tsar Vasily Shuisky and fight with False Dmitry II. Yes, Yuri Alekseevich got a powerful "startup", but he himself was not a bastard. At the age of 17, Dolgorukov began to carry out military service (he was born approximately in 1610), and at 33 he became a voivode in Venev. Yuri Alekseevich stood out for his "intelligence and ingenuity", so he was granted a boyar, and after that he was invited to take part in drawing up the Cathedral Code of 1648.
Reception by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich of the Swedish Embassy in 1674. Yuri Dolgorukov is depicted next to the throne.
Then he, like a "crisis manager", changed the post of governor to the position of a judge of the order. There were many such orders in his life. And Search, and Pushkarsky, and Khlebny, and so on. He also proved his leadership talent in practice during the war with the Commonwealth (1654-667). Yuri Alekseevich, being a voivode, inflicted several painful defeats on the enemy, the most important of which was victory in the Battle of the Tops.
But Dolgorukov was not destined to meet his old age calmly. When the uprising of Stepan Razin began, he, as an experienced military leader, was sent to the most difficult area, the area of Arzamas and Nizhny Novgorod. Here, Yuri Alekseevich had to defeat a certain old woman Alena, who raised the local people to revolt. Dolgorukov knew that the admired peasants endowed their chieftain with supernatural abilities and excitedly talked about her feats of arms and the "miracles" she performed. Due to his age, experience and position, Dolgorukov did not believe in all this "obscurantism". He understood: he was waiting for a meeting with a cunning and clever adversary who knew how to control the crowd. The new challenge did not frighten Yuri Alekseevich. Fairy tales, but always had to fight with living and very mortal people.
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Alena Arzamasskaya.
For the peasants
History has not preserved the date of birth of Alena Temnikovskaya. It is known that she was born in the village of Vyezdnaya Sloboda, near Arzamas. As they say, from a young age, Alena began to work in the field. And in the evenings she loved to listen to fairy tales about the past exploits of the Arzamas peasants. Her life was no different from that of millions of other workers in the field. The day has passed - and thank God. But when Alena grew up, she began to see all the severity and injustice of the unenviable peasant lot. Now in the evenings, instead of fairy tales, the girl mastered the linen craft. The intelligent and hard-working Alena was an enviable bride. Many guys wanted to marry her, but … She went down the aisle with a man much older than herself. Family life turned out to be fleeting. The husband died soon after. Either from illness, or from age. Young Alena remained a childless widow. She married a second time, but not for a man,but for God, having gone to the nuns of the Nikolayevsky monastery near Arzamas.
Here a new chapter in a woman's life began. She learned to read and write and the art of healing with medicinal herbs. And Alena directed her skill to help the peasantry. After all, an ordinary villager could not count on medical assistance, he simply did not have money for this "whim". And Alena healed, healed with herbs, decoctions and "bath mold", which, as it turned out, helped well against festering wounds.
Alena perceived the injustice that reigns in the villages and villages as a personal emotional pain. But how could an ordinary nun help the poor and oppressed peasantry? Here you cannot do with a decoction of herbs …
The year was 1669. And suddenly - like a bolt from the blue - the news of Stepan Razin's uprising! The nun realized: this is a chance to rectify the situation. How old Alyona was at that time is unknown. In some sources it is said that she was still a young woman, in others she is credited with the nickname "Old Woman". In general, given the hard labor in the field and the life of a nun, even a 40-year-old peasant woman in the 17th century clearly looked much older than her years.
Alena Arzamasskaya in the monastery.
So, Alena left the monastery and joined the riot. Since the people in the surrounding settlements knew her well, it was not difficult for the nun to incite the peasants to revolt. People believed her, considering her a real saint. Traveling through the villages and villages, Alena called on the peasants to help "Father Stepan Timofeevich". Soon, her squad numbered a couple of hundred people. At first she led her comrades-in-arms to Kasimov, but then changed the plan and moved to Temnikov. She decided to take this step because of the tsarist troops, which were in the Kasimov area. Now she could not fight them. And there, on the banks of the Moksha River, many peasants lived, dissatisfied with their position. And Alena was informed that the locals are ready for a riot, they only need a leader.
She was greeted as a hero. The poor saw her as a liberator from numerous suffocating fetters. Played into the hands of Alyona and the fact that the people considered her the official messenger of Razin. In fact, this was not the case. But Alena prudently kept silent about this annoying fact. Her detachment was joined not only by Russians, but also by Mordovian and Tatar peasants. In a short time, Alena Arzamasskaya gathered an impressive strength.
For the king
When Yuri Alekseevich Dolgorukov arrived in the Arzamas lands, the uprising had already acquired a massive character. The voivode learned that in these places there are several armies of different numbers, which enjoyed the support of the population. But the main enemy was nun Alena, who became the chieftain. It was her that the voivode decided to eliminate in the first place. But getting to the goal was not so easy. Alena seemed to sense the pursuers, so she avoided meeting with the tsarist punisher.
But, as you know, you cannot escape fate. Dolgorukov methodically and coolly routed the rebel armies. On his orders, the soldiers tried to capture the leaders among the rebels. From them, Yuri Alekseevich hoped to learn information about Alyona. So, one of the captured rebels reported that the atamansha had about 600 people at his disposal. The voivode also learned that the rebels decided to take the city of Temnikov, and detachments were sent to it. Soon, Dolgorukov also had another serious opponent - Fedor Sidorov, whom the rebels freed from the Saransk prison. And the total number of rebels, moreover well armed, ranged from 5 to 7 thousand people.
Alena Arzamasskaya during the battle.
To stop Alena Arzamasskaya and Fyodor Sidorov, Yuri Alekseevich either could not, or did not have time. But in 1670 the rebels took Temnikov. And officially Alena became the main one. True, the real power in the city was concentrated in their hands by Sidorov and his entourage. Alena was not up to it - she was engaged in the treatment of wounded people and taught her skills to other women.
The fact that both rebel leaders were in the same city made Dolgorukov's task easier. He needed to strike one blow to deal with both Alena and Fedor. And at the end of November 1670, the governor gave the order to attack. The battle was fierce, but the tsarist troops managed to win. Panic began in Temnikov. And, of course, it was not without betrayal. Some rebels, guided by the rule "to betray in time is not to betray, to foresee this!" decided to curry favor with Dolgorukov in the hope of pardon. And they captured the most powerful rebels. Alena was among them. And they had to sweat a lot to grab her. The woman resisted desperately and then hid in the church. According to legend, she embraced the altar and waited for the inevitable fate. And only a few men, joining forces, were able to open her hands. Also, one of the folk legends says that not a single soldier of Dolgorukov could pull the string of her bow. Like, Alena possessed such heroic strength.
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One way or another, but in early December, Alyona Arzamasskaya ended up with Yuri Alekseevich. And he ordered to torture the nun with "special predilection." According to legend, during the torture, she did not utter a sound. The executioners were so scared that they considered her a sorceress who does not feel pain. Dolgorukov, however, reacted to this news very casually. He had already seen a lot of "witchcraft" in his long life. But he did not argue, the rebels needed a demonstrative execution for complete demoralization. And so he ordered Alena to be burned in a log house - as a heretic and a bandit who was suspected of witchcraft.
Alena Arzamasskaya.
In 1677, a brochure with the ornate title "The instructive leisure of Johann Frisch or remarkable and thoughtful conversations, in which we are talking about useful and instructive matters, and also each time reporting on the most important events of our time" was published in Germany. There was also a place in it to describe the execution of Alena. Here is what the German wrote: “Her courage also manifested itself during the execution, when she calmly ascended the edge of the hut, built according to the Moscow custom of wood, straw and other combustible things, and, crossing herself and performing other rituals, boldly jumped into it, slammed it behind a lid, and when everything was engulfed in flames, did not make a sound."
Execution of Alena Arzamasskaya.
Dolgorukov was pleased. He won perhaps the most important victory of his life. And after only a year, the life of Stepan Razin was cut short. The uprising was suppressed.
The Arzamas people remembered Alyona for a long time. And, despite the fact that the church was not on its side, people secretly lit candles and ordered memorial services. Her life and writers did not pass by. Several historical novels, short stories, plays, poems and poems are dedicated to Alena Arzamasskaya. And the first book about the chieftain was published in 1928 by Ivan Nazhivin, and it was called "Cossacks".
Pavel Zhukov