The origin of Ermak is unknown exactly, and therefore the date of his birth is unknown; there are several versions on this matter. According to one legend, he was from the banks of the Kama River, according to another, he was a native of the Kachalinskaya village on the Don. But recently, the version about Ermak’s Pomeranian origin has been heard more and more often.
There is also controversy over his name: there is an opinion that “Ermak” is a nickname derived from the name of a cooking pot. And some researchers tried to decipher his name as a modified Ermolai, Ermila and even Hermogenes. Ermak Timofeevich Alenin was born, according to different versions, in 1532, 1534 or 1542.
At first he was the chieftain of one of the many Cossack squads. On the Volga he protected the population from arbitrariness and robbery by the Crimean Tatars. In 1579, a squad of Cossacks under his command was invited by the Ural merchants Stroganov to defend against regular attacks from the Siberian Khan Kuchum. In June 1579, the squad arrived at the Chusovaya River. Here the Cossacks lived for two years and helped the Stroganovs defend their towns from predatory attacks. Ermak also took part in the Livonian War, commanding a Cossack hundred during the battle with the Lithuanians for Smolensk.
Cossack squad On September 1, 1581, under the main command of Ermak, she set out on a campaign beyond the Urals. The initiative of this campaign, according to the Esipovskaya and Remizovskaya chronicles, belonged to Ermak himself. The Cossacks rode plows up the Chusovaya River and along its tributary, the Serebryannaya River, to the Siberian portage separating the Kama and Ob basins, and along the portage they dragged the boats into the Zheravlya (Zharovlya) River. During the winter, Ermak sent a detachment of associates to reconnoiter a more southern route along the Neiva River. But the Tatar Murza defeated Ermak’s reconnaissance detachment. Only in the spring, along the rivers Zheravle, Barancha and Tagil, did they sail to Tura. They defeated the Siberian Tatars twice, on the Tour and at the mouth of the Tavda. Kuchum sent Mametkul with a large army against the Cossacks, but this army was defeated by Ermak on the banks of the Tobol, at the Babasan tract. Finally, on the Irtysh, the Cossacks inflicted a final defeat on the Tatars in the Battle of Cape Chuvashev. On October 26, 1582, Ermak entered Siberia, abandoned by the Tatars.
Ermak used the summer of 1583 to conquer the Tatars along the Irtysh and Ob rivers, meeting stubborn resistance everywhere, and took the Ostyak city of Nazim.
After the capture of the city of Siberia, Ermak sent messengers to the Stroganovs and an ambassador to the Tsar. Ivan the Terrible received the ambassador very kindly, richly presented the Cossacks with gifts and sent reinforcements with 300 warriors to reinforce them. The royal governors arrived at Ermak in the fall of 1583, but their detachment could not help the Cossack squad.
The atamans died one after another, and on August 16, 1585, Ermak Timofeevich also died. He walked with a small detachment of 50 people along the Irtysh. During an overnight stay at the mouth of the Vagai River, Kuchum attacked the sleeping Cossacks and destroyed the entire detachment. There were so few Cossacks left that Ataman Meshcheryak had to march back to Rus'. After two years of possession, the Cossacks ceded Siberia to Kuchum, only to return there a year later with a new detachment of tsarist troops.
Ermak Timofeevich (1532/1534/1542 - August 6, 1585, Siberian Khanate) - Cossack ataman, historical conqueror of Siberia for the Russian state.
Origin
The origin of Ermak is unknown; there are several versions. According to one legend, he was from the banks of the Chusovaya River. Thanks to his knowledge of local rivers, he walked along the Kama, Chusovaya and even crossed into Asia, along the Tagil River, until he was taken to serve as a Cossack (Cherepanov Chronicle), in another way - a native of the Kachalinskaya village on the Don (Bronevsky). Recently, the version about the Pomeranian origin of Ermak (originally “from the Dvina from Borka”) has been heard more and more often; they probably meant the Boretsk volost, the center of which exists to this day - the village of Borok, Vinogradovsky district, Arkhangelsk region.
His name, according to Professor Nikitsky, is a change from the name Ermolai, while Ermak sounded like an abbreviation. V. Gilyarovsky calls him Ermil Timofeevich (“Moscow Gazetnaya”). Other historians and chroniclers derive it from Herman and Eremey. One chronicle, considering Ermak's name a nickname, gives him the Christian name Vasily. The same version is played out in P. P. Bazhov’s tale “Ermakov’s Swans”. There is an opinion that “Ermak” is a nickname derived from the name of the cooking pot.
There is a hypothesis about the Turkic (Kerait or Siberian) origin of Ermak. This version is supported by arguments that the name Ermak is Turkic and still exists among the Tatars, Bashkirs and Kazakhs, but is pronounced as “Ermek” - stone. In addition, the male name Ermak (“Yrmag”) is found among the Alan-Ossetians, who widely inhabited the Don steppes until the 15th century.
The version of Ermak’s Turkic origin is indirectly confirmed by the description of his appearance preserved by Semyon Ulyanovich Remezov in his “Remezov Chronicler” of the late 17th century. According to S. U. Remezov, whose father, the Cossack centurion Ulyan Moiseevich Remezov, personally knew the surviving participants in Ermak’s campaign, the famous chieftain was “greatly courageous, and humane, and bright-eyed, and pleased with all wisdom, flat-faced, black-haired, age [i.e. medium height, and flat, and broad-shouldered.”
Ermak was first the ataman of one of the many Cossack squads on the Volga who protected the population from tyranny and robbery on the part of the Crimean Tatars. This is evidenced by reports, petitions of “old” Cossacks addressed to the tsar, namely: Gavrila Ilyin wrote that he “fought” (carried out military service) with Ermak in the Wild Field for 20 years, veteran Gavrila Ivanov wrote that he served the tsar “on the field twenty years with Ermak in the village" and in the villages of other atamans.
In 1579, a squad of Cossacks (more than 540 people), under the command of atamans Ermak Timofeevich, Ivan Koltso, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan, Matvey Meshcheryak, Cherkas Alexandrov and Bogdan Bryazga, was invited by the Ural merchants Stroganovs to protect against regular attacks from the Siberian Khan Kuchum , and went up the Kama, and in June 1579 arrived on the Chusovaya River, in the Chusovoy towns of the Stroganov brothers. Here the Cossacks lived for two years and helped the Stroganovs defend their towns from predatory attacks by the Siberian Khan Kuchum.
By the beginning of 1580, the Stroganovs invited Ermak to serve, when he was at least 40 years old. Ermak took part in the Livonian War, commanded a Cossack hundred during the battle with the Lithuanians for Smolensk. A letter from the Polish commandant Mogilev Stravinsky, sent at the end of June 1581 to King Stefan Batory, which mentions “Ermak Timofeevich - Cossack ataman,” has been preserved.
Conquest of Siberia
Vasily Ivanovich Surikov, “The Conquest of Siberia by Ermak.” Canvas, oil
Ermak Timofeevich, conqueror of Siberia. Lubok of the 19th century.
On September 1, 1581, a squad of Cossacks under the main command of Ermak set out on a campaign for the Stone Belt (Ural) from Nizhny Chusovsky Gorodok. According to another version, the campaign of Ermak, Ivan Koltso and Nikita Pan to Siberia dates back to the following year - 1582, since peace with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was concluded in January 1582, and at the end of 1581 Ermak was still at war with the Lithuanians
The initiative of this campaign, according to the Esipovskaya and Remizovskaya chronicles, belonged to Ermak himself; the Stroganovs’ participation was limited to the forced supply of supplies and weapons to the Cossacks. According to the Stroganov Chronicle (accepted by Karamzin, Solovyov and others), the Stroganovs themselves called the Cossacks from the Volga to Chusovaya and sent them on a campaign, adding 300 military men from their possessions to Ermak’s detachment (540 people).
It is important to note that the future enemy of the Cossacks, Khan Kuchum, had at his disposal forces that were several times larger than Ermak’s squad, but were much worse armed. According to the archival documents of the Ambassadorial Order (RGADA), in total, Khan Kuchum had an army of approximately 10 thousand, that is, one “tumen”, and the total number of “yasak people” who obeyed him did not exceed 30 thousand adult men.
Khan Kuchum from the Sheybanid clan was a relative of Khan Abdullah, who ruled in Bukhara, and, apparently, was an ethnic Uzbek. In 1555, the Siberian Khan Ediger from the Taibugin family, having heard about the Russian conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan, voluntarily agreed to accept Russian citizenship and pay a small tribute to the Russian Tsar Ivan IV. But in 1563, Kuchum carried out a coup, killing Ediger and his brother Bekbulat. Having seized power in Kashlyk, Kuchum spent the first years playing a clever diplomatic game with Moscow, promising to submit, but at the same time delaying the payment of tribute in every possible way. According to the Remezov Chronicle, compiled at the end of the 17th century by Semyon Remezov, Kuchum established his power in Western Siberia with extreme cruelty. This caused the unreliability of the detachments of Voguls (Mansi), Ostyaks (Khanty) and other indigenous peoples, forcibly assembled by him in 1581 to repel the Cossack invasion.
The Cossacks rode plows up the Chusovaya River and along its tributary, the Serebryannaya River, to the Siberian portage separating the Kama and Ob basins, and along the portage they dragged the boats into the Zheravlya (Zharovlya) River. Here the Cossacks were supposed to spend the winter (Remezov Chronicle). During the winter, according to the book Rezhevsky Treasures, Ermak sent a detachment of associates to reconnoiter a more southern route along the Neiva River. But the Tatar Murza defeated Ermak’s reconnaissance detachment. In the place where that Murza lived there is now the village of Murzinka, famous for its gems.
Only in the spring of 1582, along the rivers Zheravle, Barancha and Tagil, did they sail to Tura. They defeated the Siberian Tatars twice, on the Tour and at the mouth of the Tavda. Kuchum sent Mametkul with a large army against the Cossacks, but on August 1 this army was defeated by Ermak on the banks of the Tobol, at the Babasan tract. Finally, on the Irtysh, near Chuvashev, the Cossacks inflicted a final defeat on the Tatars in the Battle of Cape Chuvashev. Kuchum left the fence that protected the main city of his khanate, Siberia, and fled south to the Ishim steppes.
On October 26, 1582, Ermak entered the city of Siberia (Kashlyk) abandoned by the Tatars.
Four days later the Khanty from the river. Demyanka, the right tributary of the lower Irtysh, brought furs and food supplies, mainly fish, as gifts to the conquerors. Ermak greeted them with “kindness and greetings” and released them “with honor.” Local Tatars, who had previously fled from the Russians, followed the Khanty with gifts. Ermak received them just as kindly, allowed them to return to their villages and promised to protect them from enemies, primarily from Kuchum. Then the Khanty from the left bank regions - from the Konda and Tavda rivers - began to arrive with furs and food. Ermak imposed an annual obligatory tax on everyone who came to him - yasak. From the “best people” (tribal elite), Ermak took “shert”, that is, an oath that their “people” would pay yasak on time. After this, they were considered as subjects of the Russian Tsar.
In December 1582, Kuchum’s military leader, Mametkul, destroyed one Cossack detachment from an ambush on Lake Abalatskoye, but on February 23, the Cossacks dealt a new blow to Kuchum, capturing Mametkul on the Vagai River.
Ermak used the summer of 1583 to conquer Tatar towns and uluses along the Irtysh and Ob rivers, meeting stubborn resistance everywhere, and took the Ostyak city of Nazim. After the capture of the city of Siberia (Kashlyk), Ermak sent messengers to the Stroganovs and an ambassador to the Tsar - Ataman Ivan Koltso.
Ataman Ermak at the Monument “1000th Anniversary of Russia” in Veliky Novgorod
Ivan the Terrible received him very kindly, richly presented the Cossacks and sent Prince Semyon Bolkhovsky and Ivan Glukhov, with 300 warriors, to reinforce them. The royal commanders arrived at Ermak in the fall of 1583, but their detachment could not provide significant assistance to the Cossack squad, which had been greatly reduced in battle. The atamans died one after another: first Bogdan Bryazga was ambushed; then, during the capture of Nazim, Nikita Pan was killed; and in the spring of 1584 the Tatars killed Ivan Koltso and Yakov Mikhailov. Ataman Matvey Meshcheryak was besieged in his camp by the Tatars and only with heavy losses forced their leader Karacha, vizier Kuchum, to retreat.
On August 6, 1585, Ermak Timofeevich himself died. He walked with a small detachment of 50 people along the Irtysh. While spending the night at the mouth of the Vagai River, Kuchum attacked the sleeping Cossacks and destroyed almost the entire detachment. According to one legend, the ataman, who bravely resisted, was burdened with his armor, in particular, the shell donated by the tsar, and, trying to swim to the plows, drowned in the Irtysh. According to Tatar legends, Ermak was mortally wounded in the throat by a spear from the Tatar hero Kutugai.
There were so few Cossacks left that Ataman Meshcheryak had to march back to Rus'. After two years of possession, the Cossacks ceded Siberia to Kuchum, only to return there a year later with a new detachment of tsarist troops.
Performance evaluation
Some historians rate Ermak’s personality very highly, “his courage, leadership talent, iron willpower,” but the facts conveyed by the chronicles do not give any indication of his personal qualities and the degree of his personal influence. Be that as it may, Ermak is “one of the most remarkable figures in Russian history,” writes historian Ruslan Skrynnikov.
Death of Ermak
There is a legend that Ermak’s body was soon caught from the Irtysh by the Tatar fisherman “Yanysh, Begishev’s grandson.” Many noble Murzas, as well as Kuchum himself, came to look at the ataman’s body. The Tatars shot at the body with bows and feasted for several days, but, according to eyewitnesses, his body lay in the air for a month and did not even begin to decompose. Later, having divided his property, in particular, taking two chain mail donated by the Tsar of Moscow, he was buried in the village, which is now called Baishevo. He was buried in a place of honor, but behind the cemetery, since he was not a Muslim. The question of the authenticity of the burial is currently being considered. The armor with targets (plaques) donated to Ermak by Tsar Ivan, which belonged to the governor Pyotr Ivanovich Shuisky, who was killed in 1564 by Hetman Radziwill in the Battle of Chashniki, first went to the Kalmyk taiji Ablai, and in 1646 was recaptured by the Russian Cossacks from the “thieves’ Samoyed” - the rebels Selkup. In 1915, during excavations in the Siberian capital of Kashlyk, exactly the same plaques with double-headed eagles were found that were on Shuisky’s shell, which Ermak himself could have dropped there.
Memory
The memory of Ermak lives among the Russian people in legends, songs (for example, “Song of Ermak” is included in the repertoire of the Omsk choir) and place names. The most common settlements and institutions named after him can be found in Western Siberia. Cities and villages, sports complexes and sports teams, streets and squares, rivers and marinas, steamships and icebreakers, hotels, etc. are named in honor of Ermak. For some of them, see Ermak. Many Siberian commercial firms have the name “Ermak” in their name.
In Omsk, the Danish entrepreneur Randrup S.H. at the beginning of the 20th century established the production of domestic sewing machines called “Ermak” based on the German sewing machine “ZINGER”;
Monuments in the cities: Novocherkassk, Tobolsk (in the form of a stele, 1848), in Altai in Zmeinogorsk (transferred from the Kazakh city of Aksu, until 1993 it was called Ermak), Surgut (opened on June 11, 2010; author - sculptor K. V. Kubyshkin) . In Veliky Novgorod, on the Monument “1000th Anniversary of Russia”, among the 129 figures of the most outstanding personalities in Russian history (as of 1862), there is the figure of Ermak.
Streets in the cities: Belov, Berezniki, Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk Territory), Ivanovo, Novokuznetsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk, Novocherkassk (square), Lipetsk and Rostov-on-Don (alleys).
Ermak Hill is one of the attractions of the city of Verkhnyaya Tura (Sverdlovsk region).
Mount Ermak in the Kungur region of the Perm region.
Russian feature film (mini-series) by V. Krasnopolsky and V. Uskov “Ermak” (1996) (in the title role Viktor Stepanov).
In 2001, the Bank of Russia, in the series of commemorative coins “Development and Exploration of Siberia,” issued a coin “Ermak’s Campaign” with a face value of 25 rubles.
Among Russian surnames, the surname Ermak is found.
In 1899, at the shipyard in Newcastle (England), according to the design of Admiral S. O. Makarov, the world's first linear icebreaker, Ermak, was built for Russia, which served until 1960. In 1974, a new diesel-electric icebreaker, Ermak, was built for the Soviet Union at the Finnish shipyard Värtsila.
The world's first linear icebreaker "Ermak"
Stele of Ermak in Tobolsk. In the background is the Tobolsk Kremlin
Monument to Ermak in Novocherkassk
Don money - 100 rubles. Ermak. obverse, 1918. Rostov
Don money - 100 rubles. Ermak. reverse, 1918. Rostov
Based on Wikipedia materials
Origin
Conquest of Siberia
Performance evaluation
Death of Ermak
Ermak Timofeevich(1532/1534/1542 - August 6, 1585) - Cossack chieftain, historical conqueror of Siberia for the Russian state.
Origin
Origin Ermak unknown exactly, there are several versions. According to one legend, he was from the banks of the Kama. Thanks to his knowledge of local rivers, he walked along the Kama, Chusovaya and even crossed into Asia, along the Tagil River, until he was taken to serve as a Cossack (Cherepanov Chronicle), in another way - a native of the Kachalinskaya village on the Don (Bronevsky). Recently, the version about the Pomeranian origin of Ermak (originally “from the Dvina from Borka”) has been heard more and more often; they probably meant the Boretsk volost, the center of which exists to this day - the village of Borok, Vinogradovsky district, Arkhangelsk region.
His name, according to Professor Nikitsky, is a change of name Ermolai, but Ermak sounded like an abbreviation. Other historians and chroniclers derive it from Herman And Eremeya. One chronicle, considering Ermak's name a nickname, gives him the Christian name Vasily. There is an opinion that “Ermak” is a nickname derived from the name of the cooking pot.
There is a hypothesis about the Turkic (Kerait or Siberian) origin of Ermak. This version is supported by arguments that the name Ermak is Turkic and still exists among the Tatars, Bashkirs and Kazakhs, but is pronounced as Ermek. This speaks in favor of the theory preserved by the Turks of Russia and Kazakhstan that Ermak was a traitor and was baptized, from which he became an outcast (Cossack), which is why he managed to lead Russian troops through the territories of the Turkic khanates. The theory is also supported by the fact that the name Ermak was not and is not used in Russia when naming babies.
Ermak was first the ataman of one of the many Cossack squads on the Volga who protected the population from tyranny and robbery on the part of the Crimean Tatars. In 1579, a squad of Cossacks (more than 500 people), under the command of atamans Ermak Timofeevich, Ivan Koltso, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan and Matvey Meshcheryak was invited by the Ural merchants the Stroganovs to protect against regular attacks from the Siberian Khan Kuchum and went up the Kama and in June 1579 arrived on the Chusovaya River, in the Chusovoy towns of the Stroganov brothers. Here the Cossacks lived for two years and helped the Stroganovs defend their towns from predatory attacks by the Siberian Khan Kuchum.
By the beginning of 1580, the Stroganovs invited Ermak to serve, then he was at least 40 years old. Ermak took part in the Livonian War, commanded a Cossack hundred during the battle with the Lithuanians for Smolensk.
Conquest of Siberia
On September 1, 1581, by order of Ivan the Terrible, a squad of Cossacks under the main command of Ermak set out on a campaign beyond the Stone Belt (Ural) from Orel-gorod. According to another version, proposed by the historian R. G. Skrynnikov, the campaign of Ermak, Ivan Koltso and Nikita Pan to Siberia dates back to 1582, since peace with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was concluded in January 1582, and at the end of 1581 Ermak was still fighting with the Lithuanians.
The initiative of this campaign, according to the Esipovskaya and Remizovskaya chronicles, belonged to Ermak himself; the Stroganovs’ participation was limited to the forced supply of supplies and weapons to the Cossacks. According to the Stroganov Chronicle (accepted by Karamzin, Solovyov and others), the Stroganovs themselves called the Cossacks from the Volga to Chusovaya and sent them on a campaign, adding 300 military men from their possessions to Ermak’s detachment (540 people).
The Cossacks rode plows up the Chusovaya River and along its tributary, the Serebryannaya River, to the Siberian portage separating the Kama and Ob basins, and along the portage they dragged the boats into the Zheravlya (Zharovlya) River. Here the Cossacks were supposed to spend the winter (Remizov Chronicle). During the winter, according to the book Rezhevsky Treasures, Ermak sent a detachment of associates to reconnoiter a more southern route along the Neiva River. But the Tatar Murza defeated Ermak’s reconnaissance detachment. In the place where that Murza lived there is now the village of Murzinka, famous for its gems.
Only in the spring, along the rivers Zheravle, Barancha and Tagil, did they sail to Tura. They defeated the Siberian Tatars twice, on the Tour and at the mouth of the Tavda. Kuchum sent Mametkul with a large army against the Cossacks, but this army was defeated by Ermak on the banks of the Tobol, at the Babasan tract. Finally, on the Irtysh, near Chuvashev, the Cossacks inflicted a final defeat on the Tatars in the Battle of Cape Chuvashev. Kuchum left the fence that protected the main city of his khanate, Siberia, and fled south to the Ishim steppes.
On October 26, 1582, Ermak entered Siberia, abandoned by the Tatars. In December, Kuchum’s commander, Mametkul, destroyed one Cossack detachment from an ambush on Lake Abalatskoye, but the following spring the Cossacks dealt a new blow to Kuchum, capturing Mametkul on the Vagai River.
Ermak used the summer of 1583 to conquer Tatar towns and uluses along the Irtysh and Ob rivers, encountering stubborn resistance everywhere, and took the Ostyak city of Nazim. After the capture of the city of Siberia, Ermak sent messengers to the Stroganovs and an ambassador to the Tsar, Ataman Koltso.
Ivan the Terrible received him very kindly, richly presented the Cossacks and sent Prince Semyon Bolkhovsky and Ivan Glukhov, with 300 warriors, to reinforce them. The royal commanders arrived at Ermak in the fall of 1583, but their detachment could not provide significant assistance to the Cossack squad, which had diminished in battle. The atamans died one after another: during the capture of Nazim, Nikita Pan was killed; in the spring of 1584, the Tatars killed Ivan Koltso and Yakov Mikhailov. Ataman Meshcheryak was besieged in his camp by the Tatars and only with heavy losses forced their khan, Karacha, to retreat.
On August 6, 1585, Ermak Timofeevich also died. He walked with a small detachment of 50 people along the Irtysh. During an overnight stay at the mouth of the Vagai River, Kuchum attacked the sleeping Cossacks and destroyed the entire detachment.
There were so few Cossacks left that Ataman Meshcheryak had to march back to Rus'. After two years of possession, the Cossacks ceded Siberia to Kuchum, only to return there a year later with a new detachment of tsarist troops.
Performance evaluation
Some historians rate Ermak’s personality very highly, “his courage, leadership talent, iron willpower,” but the facts conveyed by the chronicles do not give any indication of his personal qualities and the degree of his personal influence. Be that as it may, Ermak is “one of the most remarkable figures in Russian history” (Skrynnikov).
Death of Ermak
According to the latest data, after Ermak drowned in the Irtysh, downstream (according to Siberian-Tatar legends) a Tatar fisherman caught him with a net not far from the site of the bloody battle where he fell. Many noble Murzas, as well as Kuchum himself, came to look at the ataman’s body. The Tatars shot at the body with bows and feasted for several days, but, according to eyewitnesses, his body lay in the air for a month and did not even begin to decompose. Later, having divided his property, in particular, taking two chain mail donated by the Tsar of Moscow, he was buried in the village, which is now called Baishevo. He was buried in a place of honor, but behind the cemetery, since he was not a Muslim. The question of the authenticity of the burial is currently being considered.
Memory
The memory of Ermak lives among the Russian people in legends, songs (for example, “Song of Ermak” is included in the repertoire of the Omsk choir) and place names. The most common settlements and institutions named after him can be found in Western Siberia. Cities and villages, sports complexes and sports teams, streets and squares, rivers and marinas, steamships and icebreakers, hotels, etc. are named in honor of Ermak. For some of them, see Ermak. Many Siberian commercial firms have the name “Ermak” in their name.
- Monuments in the cities: Novocherkassk, Tobolsk (in the form of a stele), in Altai in Zmeinogorsk (transferred from the Kazakh city of Aksu, until 1993 it was called Ermak), Surgut (opened on June 11, 2010; author - sculptor K. V. Kubyshkin).
- High relief on the frieze of the monument “Millennium of Russia”. In Veliky Novgorod, on the Monument “1000th Anniversary of Russia”, among the 129 figures of the most outstanding personalities in Russian history (as of 1862), there is the figure of Ermak.
- Streets in the cities: Omsk, Berezniki, Novocherkassk (square), Lipetsk and Rostov-on-Don (alleys).
- Feature film “Ermak” (1996) (in the title role Viktor Stepanov).
- In 2001, the Bank of Russia, in the series of commemorative coins “Development and Exploration of Siberia,” issued a coin “Ermak’s Campaign” with a face value of 25 rubles.
- Among Russian surnames, the surname Ermak is found.
Ermak’s personality has long been overgrown with legends. Sometimes it is not clear whether this is a historical figure or a mythological one. We don’t know for sure where he came from, who was his origin and why he went to conquer Siberia?
Ataman of unknown blood
“Unknown by birth, famous in soul” Ermak still holds many mysteries for researchers, although there are more than enough versions of his origin. In the Arkhangelsk region alone, at least three villages call themselves Ermak’s homeland. According to one hypothesis, the conqueror of Siberia is a native of the Don village of Kachalinskaya, another finds his homeland in Perm, the third - in Birka, located on the Northern Dvina. The latter is confirmed by the lines of the Solvychegodsk chronicler: “On the Volga, the Cossacks, Ermak ataman, originally from the Dvina and Borka, smashed the sovereign’s treasury, weapons and gunpowder, and with that they climbed to Chusovaya.”
There is an opinion that Ermak came from the estates of the industrialists Stroganovs, who later went to “fly” (lead a free life) to the Volga and Don and joined the Cossacks. However, recently we have increasingly heard versions about the noble Turkic origin of Ermak. If we turn to Dahl's dictionary, we will see that the word “ermak” has Turkic roots and means “small millstone for peasant hand mills.”
Some researchers suggest that Ermak is a colloquial version of the Russian name Ermolai or Ermila. But the majority are sure that this is not a name, but a nickname given to the hero by the Cossacks, and it comes from the word “armak” - a large cauldron used in Cossack life.
The word Ermak, used as a nickname, is often found in chronicles and documents. Thus, in the Siberian chronicle one can read that during the foundation of the Krasnoyarsk fort in 1628, Tobolsk atamans Ivan Fedorov son Astrakhanev and Ermak Ostafiev participated. It is possible that many Cossack chieftains may be called Ermak.
It is not known for certain whether Ermak had a surname. However, there are such variants of his full name as Ermak Timofeev, or Ermolai Timofeevich. Irkutsk historian Andrei Sutormin claimed that in one of the chronicles he met the real full name of the conqueror of Siberia: Vasily Timofeevich Alenin. This version found a place in Pavel Bazhov’s fairy tale “Ermakov’s Swans”.
Robber from the Volga
In 1581, the Polish king Stefan Batory besieged Pskov, in response, Russian troops headed to Shklov and Mogilev, preparing a counterattack. Mogilev's commandant Stravinsky reported to the king about the approach of the Russian regiments and even listed the names of the governors, among whom was “Ermak Timofeevich - Cossack ataman.”
According to other sources, it is known that in the fall of the same year Ermak was among the participants in lifting the siege of Pskov; in February 1582, he took part in the battle of Lyalitsy, in which the army of Dmitry Khvorostin stopped the advance of the Swedes. Historians have also established that in 1572 Ermak was in the detachment of Ataman Mikhail Cherkashenin, who participated in the famous Battle of Molodi.
Thanks to cartographer Semyon Remezov, we have an idea of Ermak’s appearance. As Remezov states, his father was familiar with some of the surviving participants in Ermak’s campaign, who described the ataman to him: “great, courageous, and humane, and bright-eyed, and pleased with all wisdom, flat-faced, black-haired, of average height, and flat, and broad-shouldered.” .
In the works of many researchers, Ermak is called the ataman of one of the squads of the Volga Cossacks, who traded in robbery and robbery on the caravan routes. Proof of this can be the petitions of the “old” Cossacks addressed to the Tsar. For example, Ermak’s comrade-in-arms Gavrila Ilyin wrote that he “fought” with Ermak in the Wild Field for twenty years.
Russian ethnographer Iosaf Zheleznov, referring to Ural legends, claims that Ataman Ermak Timofeevich was considered a “useful sorcerer” by the Cossacks and “had a small fraction of shishigs (devils) in his obedience.” Where there was a shortage of troops, he deployed them there.”
However, Zheleznov here rather uses a folklore cliche, according to which the exploits of heroic individuals were often explained by magic. For example, Ermak’s contemporary, Cossack ataman Misha Cherkashenin, according to legend, was charmed from bullets and himself knew how to charm guns.
AWOL in Siberia
Ermak Timofeevich most likely set off on his famous Siberian campaign after January 1582, when peace was concluded between the Moscow State and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, according to historian Ruslan Skrynnikov. It is more difficult to answer the question of what interests motivated the Cossack ataman who headed to the unexplored and dangerous regions of the Trans-Urals.
In numerous works about Ermak, three versions appear: the order of Ivan the Terrible, the initiative of the Stroganovs, or the willfulness of the Cossacks themselves. The first version should obviously disappear, since the Russian Tsar, having learned about Ermak’s campaign, sent the Stroganovs an order to immediately return the Cossacks to defend the border settlements, which have recently become more frequent in attacks by Khan Kuchum’s troops.
The Stroganov Chronicle, on which historians Nikolai Karamzin and Sergei Solovyov rely, suggests that the idea of organizing an expedition beyond the Urals belonged directly to the Stroganovs. It was the merchants who called the Volga Cossacks to Chusovaya and equipped them for a campaign, adding another 300 military men to Ermak’s detachment, which consisted of 540 people.
According to the Esipov and Remizov chronicles, the initiative for the campaign came from Ermak himself, and the Stroganovs became only involuntary accomplices in this venture. The chronicler says that the Cossacks pretty much plundered the Stroganovs’ food and gun supplies, and when the owners tried to resist the outrage committed, they were threatened with “depriving them of their lives.”
Revenge
However, Ermak’s unauthorized trip to Siberia is also questioned by some researchers. If the Cossacks were motivated by the idea of abundant profit, then, following the logic, they should have gone along the well-trodden road through the Urals to Ugra - the northern lands of the Ob region, which had been Moscow’s fiefdoms for quite a long time. There was a lot of fur here, and the local khans were more accommodating. Looking for new routes to Siberia means going to certain death.
Writer Vyacheslav Sofronov, author of a book about Ermak, notes that to help the Cossacks in Siberia, the authorities send help in the person of Prince Semyon Bolkhovsky, along with two military leaders - Khan Kireev and Ivan Glukhov. “All three are no match for the rootless Cossack chieftain!” writes Sofronov. At the same time, according to the writer, Bolkhovsky becomes subordinate to Ermak.
Sofronov draws the following conclusion: Ermak is a man of noble origin, he could well be a descendant of the princes of the Siberian land, who were then exterminated by Khan Kuchum, who came from Bukhara. For Safronov, Ermak’s behavior becomes clear, not as a conqueror, but as the master of Siberia. It is the desire for revenge against Kuchum that he explains the meaning of this campaign.
Stories about the conqueror of Siberia are told not only in Russian chronicles, but also in Turkic legends. According to one of them, Ermak came from the Nogai Horde and occupied a high position there, but still not equal to the status of the princess with whom he was in love. The girl's relatives, having learned about their love affair, forced Ermak to flee to the Volga.
Another version, published in the journal “Science and Religion” in 1996 (though not confirmed by anything), reports that Ermak’s real name was Er-Mar Temuchin, like the Siberian Khan Kuchum, he belonged to the Genghisid family. The campaign in Siberia was nothing more than an attempt to win the throne.
The development of Siberia is one of the most significant pages in the history of our country. The vast territories that currently make up most of modern Russia were, in fact, a “blank spot” on the geographical map at the beginning of the 16th century. And the feat of Ataman Ermak, who conquered Siberia for Russia, became one of the most significant events in the formation of the state.
Ermak Timofeevich Alenin is one of the most little-studied personalities of this magnitude in Russian history. It is still not known for certain where and when the famous chieftain was born. According to one version, Ermak was from the banks of the Don, according to another - from the outskirts of the Chusovaya River, according to the third - his place of birth was the Arkhangelsk region. The date of birth also remains unknown - historical chronicles indicate the period from 1530 to 1542.
It is almost impossible to reconstruct the biography of Ermak Timofeevich before the start of his Siberian campaign. It is not even known for certain whether the name Ermak is his own or is it still the nickname of the Cossack chieftain. However, from 1581-82, that is, directly from the beginning of the Siberian campaign, the chronology of events has been restored in sufficient detail.
Siberian campaign
The Siberian Khanate, as part of the collapsed Golden Horde, coexisted in peace with the Russian state for a long time. The Tatars paid an annual tribute to the Moscow princes, but when Khan Kuchum came to power, the payments stopped, and Tatar detachments began to attack Russian settlements in the Western Urals.
It is not known for certain who initiated the Siberian campaign. According to one version, Ivan the Terrible instructed the merchants Stroganov to finance the performance of a Cossack detachment into uncharted Siberian territories in order to stop Tatar raids. According to another version of events, the Stroganovs themselves decided to hire Cossacks to protect their property. However, there is another scenario: Ermak and his comrades plundered the Stroganov warehouses and invaded the territory of the Khanate for the purpose of profit.
In 1581, having sailed up the Chusovaya River on plows, the Cossacks dragged their boats to the Zheravlya River in the Ob basin and settled there for the winter. Here the first skirmishes with Tatar detachments took place. As soon as the ice melted, that is, in the spring of 1582, a detachment of Cossacks reached the Tura River, where they again defeated the troops sent to meet them. Finally, Ermak reached the Irtysh River, where a detachment of Cossacks captured the main city of the Khanate - Siberia (now Kashlyk). Remaining in the city, Ermak begins to receive delegations from indigenous peoples - Khanty, Tatars, with promises of peace. The ataman took an oath from all those who arrived, declaring them subjects of Ivan IV the Terrible, and obliged them to pay yasak - tribute - in favor of the Russian state.
The conquest of Siberia continued in the summer of 1583. Having passed along the course of the Irtysh and Ob, Ermak captured settlements - uluses - of the peoples of Siberia, forcing the inhabitants of the towns to take an oath to the Russian Tsar. Until 1585, Ermak and the Cossacks fought with the troops of Khan Kuchum, starting numerous skirmishes along the banks of Siberian rivers.
After the capture of Siberia, Ermak sent an ambassador to Ivan the Terrible with a report on the successful annexation of the lands. In gratitude for the good news, the tsar gave gifts not only to the ambassador, but also to all the Cossacks who participated in the campaign, and to Ermak himself he donated two chain mail of excellent workmanship, one of which, according to the court chronicler, had previously belonged to the famous governor Shuisky.
Death of Ermak
The date August 6, 1585 is noted in the chronicles as the day of the death of Ermak Timofeevich. A small group of Cossacks - about 50 people - led by Ermak stopped for the night on the Irtysh, near the mouth of the Vagai River. Several detachments of the Siberian Khan Kuchum attacked the Cossacks, killing almost all of Ermak’s associates, and the ataman himself, according to the chronicler, drowned in the Irtysh while trying to swim to the plows. According to the chronicler, Ermak drowned because of the royal gift - two chain mails, which with their weight pulled him to the bottom.
The official version of the death of the Cossack chieftain has a continuation, but these facts do not have any historical confirmation, and therefore are considered a legend. Folk tales say that a day later, a Tatar fisherman caught Ermak’s body from the river and reported his discovery to Kuchum. All the Tatar nobility came to personally verify the death of the ataman. Ermak's death caused a great celebration that lasted for several days. The Tatars had fun shooting at the Cossack's body for a week, then, taking the donated chain mail that caused his death, Ermak was buried. At the moment, historians and archaeologists are considering several areas as the supposed burial places of the ataman, but there is still no official confirmation of the authenticity of the burial.
Ermak Timofeevich is not just a historical figure, he is one of the key figures in Russian folk art. Many legends and tales have been created about the ataman’s deeds, and in each of them Ermak is described as a man of exceptional courage and courage. At the same time, very little is reliably known about the personality and activities of the conqueror of Siberia, and such an obvious contradiction forces researchers again and again to turn their attention to the national hero of Russia.
