Yermak's personality has long been overgrown with legends. Sometimes it is not clear whether this is a historical figure or a mythological one. We do not reliably know where he comes from, who is by origin and why he went to conquer Siberia?
Ataman of unknown blood
"Unknown by birth, famous in soul" Ermak still conceals many mysteries for researchers, although there are more than enough versions of his origin. Only in the Arkhangelsk region at least three villages call themselves the birthplace of Yermak. According to one hypothesis, the conqueror of Siberia is a native of the Don village of Kachalinskaya, another finds his homeland in Perm, and the third in Birka, located on the Northern Dvina. The latter is confirmed by the lines of the Solvychegodsky chronicler: “On the Volga, the Cossacks, Yermak ataman, who came from the Dvina from Borku, smashed the sovereign's treasury, weapons and gunpowder, and with that went up to Chusovaya.”
There is an opinion that Yermak was born in the estates of the industrialists Stroganovs, who later left to "field" (lead a free life) to the Volga and Don and joined the Cossacks. Recently, however, the version about the noble Turkic origin of Ermak has been heard more and more often. If we turn to Dahl's dictionary, we will see that the word "ermak" has Turkic roots and means "a small millstone for peasant hand mills."
Some researchers suggest that Ermak is a colloquial version of the Russian name Yermolai or Yermila. But most are sure that this is not a name, but a nickname given to the hero by the Cossacks, and it comes from the word "armak" - a large cauldron used in Cossack life.
The word Ermak, used as a nickname, is often found in chronicle sources and documents. So, in the Siberian annals one can read that when the Krasnoyarsk fortress was laid in 1628, Tobolsk atamans, Ivan Fedorov, son of Astrakhanev and Ermak Ostafiev, participated. It is not excluded that many Cossack chieftains may be called Yermaks.
Whether Ermak had a surname is not known for certain. However, there are such variants of his full name as Ermak Timofeev, or Yermolai Timofeevich. Irkutsk historian Andrei Sutormin claimed that in one of the chronicles he met the real full name of the conqueror of Siberia: Vasily Timofeevich Alenin. This version found a place in the fairy tale "Ermakov's Swans" by Pavel Bazhov.
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Rogue from the Volga
In 1581, the Polish king Stefan Batory laid siege to Pskov, in response, Russian troops went to Shklov and Mogilev, preparing a counterstrike. The commandant of Mogilev, Stravinsky, reported to the king about the approach of the Russian regiments and even listed the names of the commanders, among whom was "Ermak Timofeevich - Cossack chieftain."
According to other sources, it is known that in the fall of the same year Yermak was among the participants in the lifting of the siege of Pskov, in February 1582 he noted himself in the battle of Lyalitsy, in which the army of Dmitry Khvorostin stopped the advance of the Swedes. Historians have also established that in 1572 Yermak was in the detachment of Ataman Mikhail Cherkashenin, who participated in the famous Battle of Molody.
Thanks to the cartographer Semyon Remezov, we have an idea of Yermak's appearance. According to Remezov, his father was familiar with some of the surviving participants in Yermak's campaign, who described the ataman to him: "the great is courageous, and human, and transparent, and is content with all wisdom, flat-faced, black with brad, average growth, and flat, and broad shoulders." …
In the writings of many researchers, Ermak is called the ataman of one of the squads of the Volga Cossacks, who traded robbery and robbery on caravan routes. This can be proved by the petitions of the "old" Cossacks addressed to the tsar. For example, Ermak's colleague Gavril Ilyin wrote that for twenty years he "fled" with Ermak in the Wild Field.
The Russian ethnographer Iosaf Zheleznov, referring to the Ural legends, claims that the ataman Ermak Timofeevich was considered by the Cossacks a “useful sorcerer” and “had a small fraction of shishigov (devils) in obedience. Where rati was lacking, there he exhibited them."
However, Zheleznov here rather uses a folklore cliche, according to which the feats of heroic personalities were often explained by magic. For example, a contemporary of Yermak, the Cossack ataman Misha Cherkashenin, according to legend, was spellbound by bullets and knew how to speak cannons himself.
AWOL to Siberia
Yermak Timofeevich most likely set out on his famous Siberian campaign after January 1582, when peace was concluded between the Moscow state and the Commonwealth, according to the historian Ruslan Skrynnikov. It is more difficult to answer the question of what interests drove the Cossack chieftain, who headed for the unexplored and dangerous regions of the Trans-Urals.
In numerous works about Ermak, three versions appear: the order of Ivan the Terrible, the initiative of the Stroganovs, or the self-will of the Cossacks themselves. The first version should obviously disappear, since the Russian tsar, having learned about Yermak's campaign, sent the Stroganovs an order to immediately return the Cossacks to defend the border settlements, on which the attacks of the units of Khan Kuchum have recently become more frequent.
The Stroganov Chronicle, on which the historians Nikolai Karamzin and Sergei Soloviev rely, says that the idea to organize an expedition beyond the Urals belongs directly to the Stroganovs. It was the merchants who summoned the Volga Cossacks to Chusovaya and equipped them on a campaign, adding another 300 military men to Yermak's detachment, which consisted of 540 people.
According to the Esipovskaya and Remizovskaya chronicles, the initiative for the campaign came from Yermak himself, and the Stroganovs became only involuntary accomplices in this venture. The chronicler narrates that the Cossacks robbed the Stroganovs' food and rifle supplies fairly, and when the owners tried to resist the arbitrariness they had committed, they were threatened to "deprive them of their belly."
Revenge
However, Yermak's unauthorized trip to Siberia is questioned by some researchers. If the Cossacks were motivated by the idea of abundant profit, then, following the logic, they had to go along the well-trodden road through the Urals to Yugra - the northern lands of the Ob region, which had been Moscow fiefdoms for quite a long time. There was a lot of furs here, and the local khans were more accommodating. Looking for new ways to Siberia means going to certain death.
The writer Vyacheslav Sofronov, the author of the book about Yermak, notes that the authorities send help in the person of Prince Semyon Bolkhovsky to help the Cossacks in Siberia, along with two military leaders - Khan Kireev and Ivan Glukhov. “All three are odd to the rootless Cossack chieftain!” Writes Sofronov. At the same time, according to the writer, Bolkhovsky becomes subordinate to Ermak.
Sofronov's conclusion is as follows: Ermak is a man of noble origin, he could well have been a descendant of the princes of the Siberian land, who were then exterminated by Khan Kuchum who came from Bukhara. For Safronov, Ermak's behavior becomes understandable, not as a conqueror, but as the master of Siberia. It is with the desire to take revenge on Kuchum that he explains the meaning of this campaign.
The stories about the conqueror of Siberia are told not only by Russian chronicles, but also by Turkic legends. According to one of them, Ermak came from the Nogai Horde and held a high position there, but still not equal to the status of the princess with whom he was in love. The girl's relatives, having learned about their love affair, forced Ermak to flee to the Volga.
Another version, published in the journal Science and Religion in 1996 (though not confirmed by anything), reports that Yermak was actually called Er-Mar Temuchin, like the Siberian Khan Kuchum, he belonged to the Chingizid family. The trip to Siberia was nothing more than an attempt to regain the throne.
Taras Repin