How and for what did the serfs take revenge on the nobles in Russia?

Much is known about the bloody reprisals of the lords against the peasants. Serfs in Rus had almost no rights: they had to endure humiliation, beatings, mutilations and backbreaking work. Look at the madness of Saltychikha, shown in detail in the TV series “Bloody Woman”! The landowners felt their impunity and could subject the unfortunate man to torture for accidentally spilling tea. However, sometimes the captives’ unlimited patience ran out. The hour of revenge was approaching. We tell you how and why the serfs took up arms against the nobles.

chopped with ax

On August 24, 1809, the murder of Marshal Mikhail Fedotovich Kamensky, who was hacked to death with an ax by a serf in the forest, received scandalous publicity. It was revealed that a 71-year-old adulterer raped the young sister of a man to whom he was affiliated. He remained indebted and got even with the criminal. During the investigation, it turned out that the nobleman turned the life of the serfs into a real hell. They called him a bully because of his crazy temper. However, the authorities still punished the dissatisfied serfs, exiling almost 300 of them to Siberia.

State Counselor Alexei Alekseevich Olenin was also hit in the head with an ax on December 25, 1854. It is characteristic that serf Lev Vasiliev and his accomplices Timofeev and Merkulov independently reported themselves to the police and explained their actions by the cruel treatment of the master.

shot with gun

By the way, in the same year the peasants made an attempt on the life of another landowner – university counselor Alexander Mikhailovich Mezhakov. 14 serfs took part in the conspiracy against the owner, who did not forgive him for constant bullying and exhausting work. When the master decided to get into the car in the morning to examine his belongings, two villagers shot him from behind the bushes. The perpetrators were sentenced to 200 lashes, having their nostrils removed, and hard labor in Siberia.

I suffocated with a pillow

The landowner Kuchin was strangled with a pillow in his own bed. Since he had a strong physique, his arms and legs were held by many healthy men.

strangled by the reins

Hard work and cruel torture in 1809 pushed the serf to kill Prince Yablonovsky. The gardener first stunned the torturer with a wheel wrench, then strangled him with reins.

strangled with rope

The landowner Krakovetsky, who wouldn’t let a single skirt pass him by, was so fed up with the serf girls that they conspired together to kill him. When he invited the girl to another appointment, they immediately attacked, strangled her and threw her body in a ditch.

poisoned

30-year-old serf Vasilisa Kononova dreamed of getting married, but the master appointed her as an assistant to his wife Marim Rimskaya-Korsakova. To quickly get rid of the yoke, Vasilisa bought “red soap” from a local witch and added it to the landowner’s food. True, often Russian forced women poisoned landowners who encroached on their dignity.

soaked in alcohol

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote a lot about the humiliated and insulted, but his father, Mikhail Andreevich, was famous for his harsh temper and had a completely different attitude towards the serfs, especially when he was drunk. In 1839, the cruel landowner was found dead: his head lay in dung. For two days his body lay in the field. According to the official version, death occurred as a result of a stroke. However, according to the memoirs of Andrei (Fyodor’s younger brother), who talked with the peasants, the landowner was killed. The servants told him that the master was killed by 15 people who were threatened with punishment for their crimes. Dostoevsky’s niece, Maria, said that three men tackled him by pouring a bottle of alcohol down his throat, so that the landowner suffocated. His accomplices had a reason: Dostoevsky’s father seduced the daughters of two murderous serfs – 14-year-old Akulina Isaeva and 16-year-old Ekaterina Efimova (she even gave birth to a stillborn child from the latter). By the way, the murder took place not far from the courtyard where Catherine lived.