Foundation 

Plague Riot (1771). Moscow plague riot Echo of the Russian-Turkish War

The plague epidemic in Moscow in 1770-1772 was the last major outbreak of “pestilence” in Europe and became a difficult test for all of Russia. During this disease, according to various sources, from 50 to 100 thousand people died. Some researchers cite a figure of 200 thousand dead. Moscow is virtually empty.

However, paradoxically, it was this epidemic that gave impetus to the development of many sectors of Russian infrastructure. The general sanitary situation in Moscow improved, the number of baths increased, and on top of that, Catherine II, during whose reign the outbreak of this disease occurred, ordered the creation of a water supply system in the city. Construction of the latter lasted 26 years.

According to the most common version, the plague came to us through Moldova and Ukraine, where it in turn came from the Ottoman Empire, with which Russia was then at war. Through infected soldiers and trophies: silk and wool.

The disease mainly affected the urban poor and factory workers. It should be noted here that Moscow in those years did not have a particularly favorable sanitary situation. People took water from rivers flowing through the city, there was no garbage disposal system, and there were many stray animals in the city. There were not enough baths and hospitals in Moscow. All this began to appear later, as part of the fight against the infection.

The first outbreak of the disease occurred in November 1770 at the Moscow General Hospital of Lefortovo Sloboda. Then 25 of the 27 people in the hospital died. One of the survivors was Doctor Afanasy Shafonsky, who diagnosed the plague; he also became one of the active fighters against the epidemic.

Next, in March 1771, 130 workers died in a week at the Great Cloth Yard. The factory was closed and the surviving workers were transferred out of town. But the epidemic could no longer be stopped.

It is characteristic that the Moscow nobility, realizing that an epidemic had begun in the city, left the capital en masse even before the quarantine. Commander-in-Chief Pyotr Saltykov, civil governor Ivan Yushkov and Chief of Police Nikolai Bakhmetev left Moscow. In fact, the main commander in the city was Lieutenant General Pyotr Eropkin, who introduced quarantine, closing Moscow to people leaving it.

Muscovites became increasingly ill, but did not go to the doctors. The common people saw in doctors, firstly, foreigners in whom they did not trust, and secondly, people of an incomprehensible specialty, someone akin to sorcerers. Moreover, there were rumors around the city that if you end up in hospital quarantine, you won’t come out alive.

Nevertheless, the people found a different way of “treatment”. Suddenly, people en masse went to pray for healing to the Bogolyubsk Icon of the Mother of God. The icon was then located on the Barbarian Gate of Kitay-Gorod.

However, the Moscow archbishop of that time Ambrose (Zertis-Kamensky) immediately opposed such pandemonium, because he understood that it would only increase the risk of spreading the plague. The icon itself, by order of the archbishop, was transferred to the Church of Cyrus and John. And this, naturally, did not please the sufferers. Moreover, rumors spread that Ambrose had appropriated donations from believers that were collected during prayer services in Kitai-Gorod, although the money was sealed. All this served as the reasons for the start of a spontaneous uprising.

On September 15, about ten thousand people armed with stones and sticks shouting “They are robbing the Virgin Mary!” broke into the Kremlin and themselves plundered the Chudov Monastery. The next day, the riot gained even greater momentum, and the rebels broke through to the Donskoy Monastery, where Archbishop Ambrose was hiding. The crowd dragged him from the temple choir and beat him to death.

Another part of the crowd stormed and destroyed hospitals and quarantine houses, that is, they destroyed the already insufficiently high-quality epidemiological infrastructure of the city.

Pyotr Eropkin had to suppress the uprising. Fortunately, he had at his disposal a soldier corps of 10 thousand people. By the end of the day on September 16, government troops recaptured the Kremlin. But on September 17, the rebels besieged it again, and with it Eropkin and the garrison. In order to avoid bloodshed, the lieutenant general sent a parliamentarian, but he was stoned “almost to death.”

This incident was the last straw that broke the cup of patience. Government troops moved into battle, shooting the rebels with grapeshot and cannons. After three days of fighting, which claimed the lives of about a hundred people, the uprising was finally suppressed. At the same time, Grigory Orlov was already rushing with his troops to help Eropkin in the fight against the rioters and the epidemic.

As part of the investigation into the uprising, about 300 people were brought to court. The four instigators were executed and, moreover, anathematized for the murder of Archbishop Ambrose. Another 200 of the most active participants were whipped and sent to hard labor.

Orlov, in parallel with eliminating the consequences of the riot, organized the fight against the epidemic so that by December 1771 it was actually over. For which he was subsequently awarded, as was Pyotr Eropkin, who suppressed the uprising. Although the latter asked the empress to fire him for ordering to open fire on civilians. By the way, as part of the fight against the plague, an imperial decree prohibited burying people within the city in order to avoid the spread of the disease. New cemeteries were opened, for example, Vagankovskoye, which is now located within Moscow and is even considered “elite”.

In 1770, a plague epidemic began in Moscow. Rapidly expanding, capturing more and more areas of the city, the “Black Death” by August 1771 was killing up to 1,000 people a day. The streets and alleys were literally strewn with corpses.

The panic began. People looking for any opportunity for salvation gathered in crowds at the icon of the Bogolyubskaya Mother of God, which was considered miraculous. However, the miracle, as you understand, did not happen.

Without hope

Archbishop Ambrose, the smartest man of his time, understood that neither the icon from which the crowd made an idol, nor the numerous monetary offerings with which they tried to appease God would be able to help. And all this pandemonium only causes more infection of the population.

Therefore, in order to avoid further spread of the epidemic, he made a strong-willed decision to seal the donation box and remove and hide the icon.

The mob, distraught with horror, seeing that their last hope for healing was being taken away, broke into the building of the Donskoy Monastery and killed the Archbishop hiding there.

What does this teach us?

Of all generations, we have come closest to the end of sinful humanity. Soon or not, times will definitely begin that will be the most terrible in the entire history of the earth.

The social situation in the country at the end of the 1760s was very tense. Peasant revolts took place in various provinces, and murders of landowners became more frequent. Gangs of robbers ruled the roads. They included not only criminals, but also runaway peasants. The so-called Kizhi uprising (1769–1771) was lengthy and fierce, which was raised by state peasants of Karelia assigned to state-owned metallurgical plants, who sought to free themselves from the painful burden of labor in factory work. But if only rumors reached the capitals about the Kizhi uprising, as well as about other revolts that took place in remote provinces, then the Plague Riot that broke out in Moscow in 1771 unfolded before the eyes of the central authorities. The reason for the rebellion that engulfed the old capital (like the Copper or Salt Riot in the 17th century) was the sanitary measures of the authorities in connection with the arrival of the plague epidemic in Moscow. It spread from the South, coming from the theater of the Russian-Turkish War and, reaching the city in September 1771, it turned out to be very cruel - people died in hundreds and thousands a day. Life in Moscow was paralyzed. Shops, shops, markets were closed, many wealthy residents fled out of town, to the provinces, to their distant estates or to relatives, hoping to wait out the epidemic with them.

The Moscow authorities, led by the Commander-in-Chief of Moscow, Field Marshal Pyotr Saltykov, found themselves helpless in the face of danger. They did not take any action that could stop the unrest. Saltykov himself left Moscow and took refuge in an estate near Moscow. Abandoned by the authorities to the mercy of fate, crowds of Muscovites rushed to the Barbarian Gate, where the miraculous icon of the Mother of God was located. Rumors quickly spread among the people that touching the icon would save a person from a terrible disease. The monstrous crowd of people and the crush at the icon only contributed to the spread of the infection. Then Moscow Archbishop Ambrose ordered the icon to be taken away. This intention, and especially the sealing of the donation box near the icon, caused an outburst of rage among the mob. On September 16, 1771, armed with whatever they could find, the crowd rushed to the Donskoy Monastery, where Ambrose took refuge. The crowd was looking for the archbishop everywhere, and he might have avoided death if the hem of his dress from behind the iconostasis had not been noticed by a boy who ran into the church along with the crowd. Ambrose was dragged out and a public interrogation began.

The Archbishop answered calmly and with dignity, which somewhat calmed the crowd. But then the servant Vasily Andreev, who came running from the tavern, hit Ambrose with a stake, and the brutal crowd at once attacked and tore the saint to pieces. Fighting between rebels and government troops continued on the streets of Moscow for 3 days. The whole matter was decided by General P.D. Eropkin, who gathered all the scattered military commands into a fist and defeated the rebels near the walls of the Kremlin. The matter was completed by Count G. G. Orlov, who arrived with the guards from St. Petersburg. In addition, he took decisive sanitary measures to suppress the plague, and the ensuing frosts saved the old capital from epidemics and riots.

The unrest that began in the central and eastern parts of Russia in the 70s of the 18th century was distinguished by great complexity and tension. At that time, Russia had to begin and conduct military operations in Poland and Turkey. The hardships of wartime, of course, made themselves felt by the population, which served intensively and paid taxes for many years, starting with the first campaigns in Prussia under Empress Elizabeth (from 1757). This alone would be enough to cause displeasure among the lower, tax-paying strata of the people. But at the same time, abuses of serfdom against peasants by their landowners continued to grow continuously (§118). The peasants were well aware that they were not slaves, but the sovereign’s subjects, and were indignant at their transformation into “yard” slaves, at mixing them with slaves. At the beginning of the 18th century. peasant Pososhkov, a contemporary of Peter the Great, who compiled several remarkable economic and journalistic works, said that “the landowners are not centuries-old owners of the peasants,” that “their direct owner is the All-Russian autocrat, and they own temporarily.” With these words, Pososhkov pointed to the long-standing connection between the landowners' service to the state and the peasants' dependence on the landowners. For this purpose, the state subordinated the peasants to the landowners and forced them to work for them, so that the landowners could serve the state from the land given to them (§55). The entire peasantry knew that the peasants were obliged to work for the landowner while he served and because he served. And so, the further time went, the less and easier the landowners served; finally, from February 18, 1762, they were given the “freedom” to serve or not to serve; and meanwhile, peasant dependence became not easier, but harder, and the peasants were put in the same position as the former serfs-slaves. In many places, after the manifesto on the freedom of the nobility, peasants began open indignation against the landowners and authorities, seeking an improvement in their lot. According to them, since the compulsory service of landowners on the land was abolished, their right to work as peasants should also have ceased. Both Emperor Peter III and Empress Catherine were forced to send troops to many areas, even with cannons, to pacify peasant unrest. Thus, displeasure and unrest gradually developed among the masses.

Plague riot 1771. Artist E. Lissner

On this already combustible soil, the first accidental reason for open indignation was created - in the terrible epidemic of the plague. In 1771 in Moscow, this epidemic assumed extraordinary proportions: they say up to 1 thousand people died per day. Everyone who could left the city; public places were closed, shops were locked, work stopped. The idle people began to worry, did not follow the orders of doctors and authorities: they did not observe precautions, hid the sick, and buried the dead secretly in cellars and gardens. Not trusting doctors and police, superstitious people even rebelled against church authorities. Moscow Archbishop Ambrose noticed that people were gathering in crowds in Kitay-Gorod, at the Varvarsky Gate, to the icon of the Mother of God that was there, in the confidence that this particular icon would heal from pestilence. Realizing that the crowding of the people was only causing the infection to grow, Ambrose ordered the icon to be removed from the city gates. For this, the crowd smashed Ambrose's chambers in the Kremlin, killed him and began looting the Kremlin. The mayor, Senator Eropkin, used weapons to restore order, and up to a hundred people were killed. Despite Eropkin’s management, he could not cope with the epidemic and unrest and in this sense reported to Catherine, asking for help. Then Catherine sent Gr.

According to the new style).

The reason for the uprising was the attempt of the Moscow Archbishop Ambrose, in the conditions of an epidemic that was killing up to a thousand people a day, to prevent worshipers and pilgrims from gathering at the miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Bogolyubsk at the Barbarian Gate of Kitay-Gorod. The archbishop ordered the box for offerings to the Bogolyubskaya icon to be sealed, and the icon itself to be removed - in order to avoid crowds of people and the further spread of the epidemic.

The uprising became a cause for unrest in the vicinity of Moscow.

The "tongue" of the Spassky Alarm Bell (on the Alarm Tower) was removed by the authorities to prevent further demonstrations. For more than 30 years, the bell hung on the tower without a tongue. In 1803 it was removed and transferred to the Arsenal, and in 1821 to the Armory.

The government was forced to take measures to provide the townspeople with work and food, allocating considerable money for this at that time, as well as more energetic measures to combat the plague. After this, the epidemic began to decline, although from the height of today's knowledge this is not necessarily the result of the measures taken.

A decree of the Governing Senate “On measures to stop epidemics and establish cemeteries” was issued on November 17, 1771, which prohibited burials at churches in all cities and demanded the creation of new cemeteries outside the city limits. Many now famous necropolises in various cities that were part of the Russian Empire trace their history back to this date.

see also

Notes

Links

  • Moscow in 1771 (Sablukov A.A. Correspondence) / Communication. P.A. Mukhanov // Russian Archive, 1866. – Issue. 3. – Stb. 329-339.
  • Opochinin E.N. On the history of the plague // Historical Bulletin, 1888. – T. 33. - No. 7. – P. 201-204.

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what “Plague Riot” is in other dictionaries:

    - “PLAGUE RIOT”, an uprising in Moscow in September 1771 during the plague epidemic. Caused by hunger and police brutality. The rebels killed Archbishop Ambrose and tried to break into the Kremlin. Suppressed by troops... encyclopedic Dictionary

    Uprising in Moscow in September 1771 during the plague epidemic. Caused by hunger and police brutality. The rebels killed Archbishop Ambrose and tried to break into the Kremlin. Suppressed by troops... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

    Uprising in Moscow in September 1771 during the plague epidemic. The measures taken by the authorities to combat the epidemic (forced quarantines, destruction of property, etc.) caused fear and dissatisfaction among Muscovites. The rebels killed Archbishop Ambrose and tortured... Russian history

    - (“Plague Riot”) an uprising in Moscow in September 1771, caused by a plague epidemic. The situation was aggravated by the dissatisfaction of the bulk of the urban population with unemployment, hunger due to the closure of factories due to quarantine, lack of... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

    Uprising in Moscow in September. 1771, caused by a plague epidemic brought from Russia. tour. military theater actions. Directly The impetus for the uprising was the attempt of the Moscow. Archbishop Ambrose, under quarantine conditions, to prevent residents from crowding... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

    Uprising in Moscow in September 1771 during the plague epidemic. The measures taken by the authorities to combat the epidemic (forced quarantines, destruction of property, etc.) caused fear and dissatisfaction among Muscovites. The rebels killed Archbishop Ambrose and tried... encyclopedic Dictionary

    The uprising in Moscow on September 15-17, 1771, caused by the plague epidemic. The first signs of the plague in Moscow appeared at the end of 1770; in the spring of 1771 it acquired the character of an epidemic. Measures taken by the authorities (creation of forced quarantines, destruction without... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

    Plague Riot- (XVII century) ... Spelling dictionary of the Russian language

    This term has other meanings, see Sevastopol uprising. The plague riot in Sevastopol is a popular uprising on June 3, 1830 in Sevastopol, provoked by quarantine measures against the spread of the plague epidemic. Background… Wikipedia

    Copper riot. 1662. (Ernest Lissner, 1938). Copper riot that happened in Moscow on July 25 (... Wikipedia