Stenka Razin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
True illustration of STEPHAN RAZIN's main rebel in Moscow , around 1670
Stenka Razin on the Volga . Boris Kustodiev , 1918
Stenka Razin ( Surikow )

Stepan 'Stenka "Timofeyevich Razin (alternate spelling: Stepan Razin, Russian Степан (Стенька) Тимофеевич Разин ., Scientific transliteration Sten'ka Razin * to 1630 in Simoweiskaja on Don ; † June 6th . Jul / 16th June  1671 greg. in Moscow ) was an ataman of the Don Cossacks . He was the leader of the Razin uprising against the Russian Empire .

Life

Stenka Rasin came from a wealthy Cossack family . He is first mentioned in 1661 as a Russian envoy to the Kalmyks and the Tatars . In the same year he made a pilgrimage to the Solovetsky Monastery . In the following years he and his troop plundered as far as the Ottoman Empire .

Raids

Rasin's older brother Ivan led an independent Cossack unit in the Russian-Polish war . In 1665 he demanded the dismissal of his unit. When this was refused, he left the army with his Cossacks without authorization. They were persecuted and Ivan Razin hanged as a deserter .

Stenka Razin swore revenge. He incited the serfs , whose situation had been exacerbated by the law passed by Tsar Alexei I in 1649 . Fled serfs joined his band of robbers, which established themselves near Tsaritsyn . First, they attacked merchants who were moving south on the Volga from Nizhny Novgorod . The rich merchants and the leaders of the Strelitzen who guarded the Tsar's trading ships were brutally murdered, but Rasin took over the servants as well as the ships. Soon he had a fleet of over 30 boats. Rasin and his followers were thus at work as pirates on the Caspian Sea between 1667 and 1669 . He left Dagestan and the Persian coast devastated. In 1668, his men massacred the residents of Faraḥābād after 400 of his followers were killed in Rasht . In the spring of 1669 Rasin succeeded in destroying a fleet that Shah Sulayman I had sent against the Cossacks. In the fall he returned to the Don with large booty, including a daughter of the Shah. On August 25, 1669, Stenka Razin suddenly appeared in Astrakhan and declared that he would submit to the Tsar's orders and ask for forgiveness for his actions. Then he throws a feast to celebrate the farewell to pirate life. His men accuse him of having softened since he deflowered the Persian princess and made him his lover. During a pleasure trip on the Volga, Rasin grabs the princess he has just slept in and throws her into the river to the cheers of his men. "Take it, Mother Volga," he exclaims. "You have given me a lot of silver and gold and wealth of every kind and have granted me honor and fame, but I have not yet thanked you." The princess dies in the floods and Stenka Razin is celebrated for his manhood. This event is later celebrated in a folk song.

The uprising of the Don Cossacks

In 1670 he began to pull the Volga upstream. The core Cossack troops of his band were quickly joined by other peasants, Old Orthodox and other religious and ethnic minorities. Razin's army captured several cities, including Astrakhan and Samara , so that the insurgents briefly controlled large parts of southern Russia. The Cossack leader also intervened in the turmoil around the Tsar 's throne by presenting an alleged son of Tsar Alexeis as the rightful heir. However, after a regular aristocratic contingent had been mobilized and the insurgents quickly defeated, Rasin's supporters quickly dispersed. April 14th July / April 24, 1671 greg. Cossacks captured him from his entourage, and later he was quartered to death .

The Rasin uprising is one of the numerous uprising movements of its time, which were fueled by the harsher treatment of serfs under Tsar Alexei and the ensuing movement of refugees. He was notable for his great initial success and the first connection with religious secession from the Orthodox Church.

Artistic arrangements

literature

music

Stenka Rasin is celebrated in several Russian songs, including the popular folk song Stenka Rasin . The song sings about Rasin sleeping the princess on board the ship and accusing his men of not fighting anymore. He wrests himself from the loins of the princess and throws her into the river. Not without addressing the words to the river: "Volga, Volga, dear mother, Volga, you Russian river, you have never seen a gift from a Don Cossack! And so there is no discord among free people, Volga, Volga, dear mother, because of a beautiful girl - take it! " In a more modern romanticized version, he drapes her body with jewelry before throwing it into the water, but this is not historically guaranteed, especially since he and his men needed the jewelry.

The melody of the song was the basis for numerous political songs , such as the Heuberg song . The Seekers' song "The Carnival is over" also uses the melody.

At the age of twenty, Alexander Glasunow wrote his symphonic poem Stenka Razin Op. 13. Dmitri Shostakovich also wrote a cantata-like tone poem in 1964 entitled The Execution of Stenka Razin for baritone solo, orchestra and mixed choir. The story of Razin also dealt with Nikolai Myaskovsky in his eighth symphony .

Movie

The 10-minute short film Stenka Rasin from 1908, directed by Vladimir Romaschkow , is the first fictional production in Russian film history. Some episodes from Rasin's life are shown.

Web links

Commons : Stenka Rasin  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the waves behind islands (Stenka Razin) . volksliederarchiv.de. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  2. ↑ Stenka Rasin Lyrics . flashlyrics.com. Retrieved November 8, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Rasin, Stenka
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Разин, Стенька; Rasin, Stepan Timofejewitsch; Razin, Stenka
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian ataman of the Don Cossacks
DATE OF BIRTH 1630
PLACE OF BIRTH Simoveiskaya
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1671
Place of death Moscow