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Razin's Cossack Campaign

Type Event Region Eastern Europe Time 1670–1671

In 1670–1671 Don Cossack leader Stepan Razin led a major uprising along the Volga, capturing Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan before being defeated and execut…

Timeline

  1. 1670Lower Don · Don RiverRazin gathered Cossacks and fugitive serfs on the Don, rallying them against noble oppression and heavier taxes and corvée, and moved north along the Volga plundering and recruiting people along the way.
  2. 1670Astrakhan · Lower VolgaThe rebel army seized Astrakhan, the gateway to the Caspian, executing local officials and briefly establishing autonomous rule, controlling lower-Volga trade and fisheries and alarming the Muscovite court.
  3. 1670–1671Simbirsk · Middle VolgaRazin divided his forces northward, successively taking Tsaritsyn, Saratov, Samara and other towns; besieging Simbirsk in September–October 1670, he was defeated in early October by tsarist general Yuri Baryatinsky and retreated south wounded. In April 1671 Razin was betrayed and captured by fellow Cossacks at Kagalnik on the Don, and was executed in Moscow in June. (Yuri Dolgorukov was a general suppressing the revolt in the Tambov direction, not the one who defeated Razin at Simbirsk.)

Sources