Bulavin Rebellion

A number of social grievances were prevalent in the peasant population of Russia in the years leading up to the Bulavin Rebellion. Peter the Great's radical reforms designed to "Westernize" old Muscovy in the 18th century were met with widespread discontent. The pious, deeply conservative masses saw his reforms as an affront to their traditional way of life and to their Eastern Orthodox faith. Peter was even equated to the Anti-Christ and assumed to be an impostor posing as the true Tsar. On top of this, Peter's newly formed police state was expanding territorially, and by this expansion was encroaching upon salt resource sites coveted by the Cossacks for preservation of their foods. This dispute over land was in one sense an economic issue, but the Cossacks also regarded this as an intrusion upon their semi-autonomous political state. In general, the entire rural Russian atmosphere was in an agitated state, waiting for a catalyst of some kind.

The situation was complicated by the tensions between Don and Sloboda Cossacks, whose lands bordered each other in the area of Bakhmut. Starting from the late 17th century, Bakhmut had served as major centre of salt production along with the nearby Tor fortress, which was controlled by Don Cossacks. As Bakhmut's population consisted predominantly of Cossacks from Sloboda Ukraine, in 1703 Peter I appointed Izium colonel Fedir Shydlovskyi to govern the city. The new administration barred outsiders from obtaining salt in its territory, which produced great dissatisfaction among the Don Cossacks.^[1]

In 1705, a group of Don Cossacks captured Bakhmut and proclaimed its leader Kondraty Bulavin the town's ataman.^[1] Bulavin was born into a Don Cossack family in Triokhizbenka (now in Luhansk Oblast), where his father, a petty noble from Saltov, served as a stanitsa ataman.^[1][2] Bulavin would have been old enough to remember Stenka Razin's revolt during the late 17th century. He had developed some combat experience fighting the Kuban and Crimean Tatars in his youth. However, Bulavin was never a particularly great military commander, and throughout the rebellion that bears his name, he would forever fall short of becoming an undisputed leader. Bulavin was most likely illiterate, but like his contemporary revolutionaries, he possessed a talent for appealing to the people and inciting them to action.

After capturing Bakhmut, Bulavin deflected an attack by Izium Cossacks ordered to recapture the town by the voivode of Belgorod. He also arrested the envoy sent by Azov governor Fyodor Apraksin with a demand to vacate the town. Finally, an order by Don Host ataman Lukyan Maksimov forced Bulavin to leave. However, during their retreat his men destroyed the salt works on the Severski Donets as an act of retaliation for having been evicted by the government as squatters.^[2] The conflict was ultimately absorbed into the greater rebellion as it gained momentum.

In response to the constraints and fears of living in Peter's police state, large numbers of serfs absconded, abandoning the major urban areas, especially Moscow and the new capital at St. Petersburg. While some groups emigrated to Poland or Austria^{[dubious – discuss]}, many chose to avoid the border patrols and instead fled to the rural periphery and the river regions already inhabited by the Cossacks. It was Peter's policy to hunt down and arrest absconders and return them to their lords where they could be counted for taxes, a policy which, by this time, had no statute of limitations. However, according to Don Cossack tradition, it was forbidden to deliver newcomers who settled in their area to authorities.^[2]

As a reaction to the Don Cossacks' refusal to cooperate, Peter deployed a group of bounty hunters under Yuri Dolgorukov^[3] to scout their regions for fugitive peasants. Despite the fact that the Cossacks harbored some resentment towards the peasants (for overpopulating their region and generally competing for local resources), more deplorable to them was the idea of Petrine agents roaming freely through their territory. They not only refused to give up the fugitive peasants, but on 8 October 1707 a small band of local atamans headed by Kondraty Bulavin ambushed and murdered Dolgorukov and his men in the village of Shulgin on the Aidar River, opening the door to violence and beginning the Bulavin Rebellion.

As mentioned, the Bulavin Rebellion bore striking similarities to Razin's Revolt a generation earlier. Both were Cossack rebellions in part, aimed against an imposing governmental institution and driven by animosity for the miserable state of peasant life. They effectively set the stage for the Pugachev Uprising under Catherine the Great.

In response to the uprising, Peter tightened his grip on the Don Cossacks, depriving them of part fo their lands and liquidating most elements of self-government in the area.^[2] As a result, a group of 2000 Cossacks under Ignat Nekrasov fled under protection of the Crimean Khanate. Descendants of these Nekrasovites would relocate to Anatolia during the Pugachev Uprising and settle near Constantinople, where their traditional culture would continue to the present day.

In the aftermath of the uprising, Cossacks of Izium Sloboda Regiment recaptured Bakhmut and turned it into a fortress. However, conflicts with the Don Cossacks continued until 1715, when salt factories in the area were transferred under the management of state treasury. In 1745 a separate Bakhmut Cossack Host [uk] was established by the government from a number of settlers from the Don and Sloboda Ukraine. In 1748 it was transformed into a regular cavalry regiment, tasked with guarding the local salt production from Kalmyk and Nogai raids.^[1]

In 1971 a monument to Bulavin was installed in central Bakhmut.^[2]