Bashkir uprising (1681–1684)

The main reason was rooted in the issued decree (Decree of May 16, 1681 ) of the tsarist government, which proclaimed a course towards the violent Christianization of the Bashkirs.

The uprising swept the territory from the middle course of the Iset River in the east to the Volga in the west, from the headwaters of the Yaik rivers (now the Ural River) in the south to the middle reaches of the Kama and Chusova in the north. ^[four]

The main forces of the rebels: the Bashkirs, at the head was the Bashkirs from the noble family Seit-Batyr . The first performances began in the summer of 1681 in the Nogai and Siberian Darugs . In the spring of 1682, a mass struggle unfolded: the rebels of the Kazan daruga attacked the Zakamsky fortresses, the main blow in the Osinskaya daruga was aimed at the Kungur , fortresses and villages founded by the Stroganovs on Bashkir lands. ^[five]

Numerous rebel units besieged Ufa , took Krasny Yar , Lovashnoye and others, in the west - Pyaniy Bor , Karakulino and other objects. By May, an uprising swept the whole land. Unsuccessful attempts to suppress the uprising forced the government to turn to the Bashkirs with a promise to cancel the decree and forgive all the participants in the uprising. Some of the rebels, led by Kuchuk Yulaev, stopped the fight and appealed to the government with a petition , and another part, led by Seit, continued the fight.

The rebels established contact with Kalmyk Taisha Ayuka . In July 1682, Kalmyk troops arrived in Bashkortostan . The uprising resumed. Bashkirs and Kalmyks besieged Ufa and Menzelinsk , attacked fortresses, settlements and villages built on Bashkir lands. In order to break the alliance of the Bashkirs with the Kalmyks, the government began negotiations with Ayuka and at the beginning of 1683 achieved its refusal to support the uprising. But the struggle continued: in the spring and summer of 1683, insurgents attacked the Zakamsky fortresses, burned the Ascension Monastery, besieged the salt town, Menzelinsk and other settlements. To suppress the uprising, troops were assembled under the command of Yu. S. Urusov. The Kalmyk Taisha Ayuk with a detachment of 40 thousand people invaded Bashkortostan in order to force the Bashkirs to secede from Russia and transfer under its authority. The brutality of the Kalmyks forced the Bashkir rebels to stop the struggle against the Russian kingdom . This was facilitated by the statement of the tsarist government that it had never issued a decree on the forcible baptism of Muslims . ^[6]

The stubbornness of the rebels forced the Russian government to make concessions: it condemned the seizure of the Bashkir lands, reaffirmed the patrimonial rights of the Bashkirs and abandoned the course of forced Christianization.

• Akmanov I.G. Bashkir uprisings of the 17th and early 18th centuries - Ufa: “Kitap”, 1998.
• Akmanov I.G. - Sverdlovsk: Publishing House of the Ural University, 1991.