Pugachov, Yemelyan Ivanovich

▪ Russian leader

Pugachov also spelled  Pugachev  

born c. 1742, , Zimoveyskaya-na-Donu, Russia

died Jan. 21 [Jan. 10, old style], 1775, Moscow

 leader of a major Cossack and peasant rebellion in Russia (Pugachov Rebellion, 1773–75).

      An illiterate Don Cossack, Pugachov fought in the Russian Army in the final battles of the Seven Years' War (1756–63), in Russia's campaign in Poland (1764), and in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74. Following the siege and conquest of Bendery (1769–70), however, he returned home as an invalid. For three years after his recovery, he wandered, particularly among settlements of Old Believers, a dissident religious group that exercised considerable influence over him.

      Learning in the course of his travels of the Yaik (Ural) Cossack Rebellion of 1772 and of its cruel suppression, Pugachov proceeded to Yaitsky Gorodok (now Oral), where the Cossacks remained discontented. Although he was arrested there for desertion from the army, imprisoned at Kazan, and sentenced to be deported to Siberia, he escaped and in June 1773 appeared in the steppes east of the Volga River. Claiming to be Emperor Peter III (who had been deposed by his wife, Catherine II the Great, and assassinated in 1762), Pugachov decreed the abolition of serfdom and gathered a substantial following, including Yaik Cossacks, peasant workers in the mines and factories of the Urals, agricultural peasants, clergymen, and the Bashkirs. Planning ultimately to depose Catherine, Pugachov stormed and laid siege to Orenburg, an important commercial and industrial centre of the Ural region (fall 1773). As the landowners of the region, fearing for their lives, fled to Moscow, Catherine recognized the seriousness of the rebellion and sent an army commanded by Gen. A.I. Bibikov against Pugachov (January 1774). In the spring Bibikov defeated Pugachov at Tatishchevo, west of Orenburg, but Pugachov proceeded to Kazan and burned the city (July 1774). He was defeated again several days later, but he crossed the Volga River, intending to gather reinforcements among the Don Cossacks. He captured Saratov (August 1774) and besieged Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd), where Gen. A.V. Suvorov finally defeated him (Sept. 3 [Aug. 23, old style], 1774). Pugachov escaped but was betrayed by some Yaik Cossacks, sent to Moscow, and executed.

* * *