Pugatchef— His Birth and Initiation in Warfare and Robbery— Biographies of him difficult to be procured — His Flight into Poland — Adopts the religious Creed of Roskolniki (Starowiertzy Puritans) — Joins the Cossacks of the laik — His Expedition in Kuban — Is arrested at Malefolka, but escapes — Rebellion among the Cossacks of the laik on account of the Infringement of their Privileges — Pugatchef joins them — Uncertain when he assumed the title of Peter IH. — His Invasion of the newly -established Colonies at the Banks of the Irghis — Besieges the Town of laitzkai, and is repulsed— Attracts to his Party the Cossacks of the Betz — Takes Basyrnaya, Ossernaya, and Tateschtcheva — Cuts to pieces the Russian Corps under Colonel Bulof— Vanquishes General Tchemishef, and slays all who refuse to join him— Besieges the Town of Orenburg — His Successes and Extent of his Domination — His Hypocrisy— Inscription and Motto on his Standards — His unexpected Successes — His Court and Ministers — His Intention of exterminating the Russian Nobility — His Proclamations and Manifesto — Price offered for his Head — Partial Successes of Bibikof— Unsuccessful Siege of Orenburg— Battle with the main Army of General Bibikof— His Retreat into the Uralian Mountains and Re-appearance with an Army — Burning of Kazan, and Rejection in the Moimtains by Michelson— Re-appearance with Proclamations and Manifestos—Capture of the Towns of Pensa, Saratof, and Dymitrefsk — His SurpriseofDuboskai'a- Ultimately vanquished and routed near Tchernojar — His Flight to the Deserts on the Banks of the Ouzem — Is Betrayed and delivered to the Russians— His Punishment and Execution at Moscow — Consequences of his Rebellion — Comparison with Stenko Razin — Remarks.
After the murder of Peter III. by Catherine's favourite, at the imperial seat Ropscha, in 176, though the body of that ill-fated monarch was publicly exREBELLION OF PTJGATCHEF.. 187 posed in the convent of Alexander Newski, a rumour was prevalent that the czar had escaped the snares of the assassins, and was living concealed in a distant province of the Russian empire, till more favourable circumstances should allow him to regain his throne and punish the traitors.
Several different impostors successively attempted to avail themselves of this popular delusion, and, by personating the ill-fated emperor, to make good their claims to the Russian throne; but four of them were suppressed with more or less difficulty, and they expiated, by a cruel death on the scaffold, the crime of their mischievous imposture.
Of these audacious pretenders, who were all more or less favoured indirectly by the Russian priests, the first was a shoemaker of Voronetz; the second, a private deserter from the regiment of Orlof; the third, Stefano Piccolo, an lUyrian, an Austrian deserter of good address, who practised surgery in Turkey; the fourth, a serf of the illustrious family of Vorontzof;* and the fifth, a malefactor escaped from the prison of Irkutsk. One only of them, the third in rotation, Stefano Piccolo, more fortunate than the others, amassed some wealth and escaped, probably because he attempted his imposture, not in Russia, but in the country of the Montenegrinos, under the Turkish domination.
In spite, however, of all these repeated failures, and of the terrible example of retributive justice thus afforded, the elements of rebellion still existed; the discarded clergy, the Cossacks, and some disappointed Russian grandees, were busily engaged in preparing secretly a more serious and more formidable outbreak, and a terrible and unexpected storm was gathering.
The man whose name made the whole of Russia tremble to her very foundation — the man whose courage, enterprise, ability, perseverance, as well as ferocity, hypocrisy, and disgusting excesses, are about to be narrated — deserves particular notice, though the extent of this work does not afford space to explain many interesting facts.
Ikhmelian Pugatchef, son of a private Cossack, Izmailof, was bom in 176, at Simoveisk, on the banks of the Don, in the commune of the Kossack Stanitza Zinvilskaia, served under the command of Field-marshal Apraxyn, in the seven years"* war, and made the campaign of 1769 against the Turks. After the siege of Bender, where he distinguished himself by his gallantry, he resolved, for some reasons never yet clearly explained, to leave the military service; but, not having received on that subject a satisfactory answer, he deserted, went to Poland, and was hospitably received and taken care of by some clergy of the Greco-Russian church in Podolia.