Yermak Timofeevich

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Monument to Ataman Yermak in Novocherkassk

Yermak Timofeyevich ( Russian Ермак Тимофеевич ., Scientific transliteration Ermak Timofeevic * 1525 or 1540 in Suzdal , † 5 / 6 August 1585 ) was a Russian Cossack - Ataman and explorers . Yermak is considered the "conqueror of Siberia".

origin

Yermak on the National Monument Thousand Years of Russia in Novgorod

Yermak's origins are shrouded in rumors. Before his time in the service of the Stroganovs, like his father and grandfather before him, he is said to have been a river pirate and forest robber on the Volga. Others claimed that he took part in the war against Poland-Lithuania as a Cossack .

Conquest of Sibir

The Stroganov merchant family, who lived in Perm , received sole commercial rights in Siberia from the Russian Tsar Ivan IV in 1558 and was entrusted with its colonial development. The Stroganows maintained their own troops and fortresses in Siberia to protect their lands from invasions. Around 1580 they took Cossacks into their service, including Yermak. On behalf of the Stroganovs, he crossed the Urals and demonstrated skill. On September 1, 1581, the mercenaries he led succeeded in preventing a further advance of a Tatar army. From October 23 to 25, 1582 he conquered the khanate in the Battle of the Three Days with only 540 Cossacks and 300 mercenaries of the Stroganov, well equipped with firearms and several small cannons, but without horses, which would have been of little use in the swamp areas Sibir near today's Tobolsk . His numerically hardly superior opponent Kütschüm Khan had fewer firearms and only two cannons (probably from Bukhara ) and was also not used to the fighting style of the Cossacks advancing quickly in boats over the rivers Tura, Tobol and Irtysh .

Yermak on a Russian postage stamp (2010)

The conquest of North Asia , until then untouched by Europeans , was initiated. Shortly afterwards, Yermak subordinated Siberia to the Russian Tsar Ivan IV and had rich ( fur ) gifts brought to him in order to obtain his urgently needed support, because despite the loss of their capital, Isker / Sibir, the Tatars gave the capture of their troop leader Mahmet Kul ( Nephew of the Khan), internal disputes and the arrival of 300 Russian strelizos (November 1584). They had the home advantage, while the besieged Cossacks starved for lack of supplies and lost their fighting strength.

death

On 5th / 6th In August 1585, Yermak drowned at the mouth of the Wagai River in the Irtysh, about 50 kilometers southeast of today's Tobolsk. The Tatars had lured him out of his fortification with the false rumor of the arrival of a Bucharian caravan . During the nightly attack on his boats he drowned because his heavy armor pulled him down. The Tatars under Kütschüm's son Ali regained their capital. The remaining 90 Cossacks withdrew, then met with a newly arrived hundred and founded the first Russian settlements in Siberia in 1586 and 1587: Tyumen and Tobolsk. It was not until 1598 that Kütschüm Khan was finally defeated. He was murdered while fleeing by Nogai people .

literature

  • Terence Armstrong (Ed.): Yermak's Campaign in Siberia . Hakluyt Society, London 1999.
  • W. Bruce Lincoln: The Conquest of Siberia . Munich 1996. ISBN 3-492-03441-1
  • Yuri Semyonov: Siberia. Treasury of the East . Frankfurt et al., Büchergilde 1976. (EA Berlin: Ullstein 1937 udT Die Eroberung Sibiriens), pp. 81–116.
  • Gudrun Ziegler: The gold of the tsars . Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-17988-9

Fiction

Web links

Commons : Yermak Timofejewitsch  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h François Angelier: Dictionnaire des Voyageurs et Explorateurs occidentaux du XIIIe au XXe siècle . Pygmalion (Éditions Flammarion), Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-7564-0156-0 , p. 719 .
personal data
SURNAME Yermak Timofeevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yermak
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian explorer, conqueror of Siberia
DATE OF BIRTH between 1537 and 1540
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1585 or August 6, 1585