# Astrakhan uprising of 1670–1671
The Astrakhan uprising of 1670–1671 (*Астраханское восстание 1670–1671*) was the seizure and hold of the Volga fortress city of [Astrakhan](https://www.edgepedia.org/astrakhan) by rebels of [Stepan Razin](https://www.edgepedia.org/stepan-razin)'s movement, which began with a night assault on 22 June 1670 and ended when government troops under Boyar Ivan Miloslavsky entered the city on 27 November 1671.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php) It was part of the peasant war of 1670–1671, a rising that covered the Don, the Volga region, and the Trans-Volga region and grew out of the intensification of serfdom and social contradictions in the second half of the 17th century.[3](https://tatarica.org/ru/razdely/istoriya/novoe-vremya/znachimye-sobytiya/krestyanskaya-vojna-1670-1671-gg-v-rossii)
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Event | Rebel seizure and hold of Astrakhan within the peasant war of 1670–1671[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) |
| Dates | Assault in the night of 22 June 1670; city fell to government forces on 27 November 1671[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php) |
| Rebel leaders | Stepan Razin; in Astrakhan, Vasily Us and Fyodor Sheludyak[3](https://tatarica.org/ru/razdely/istoriya/novoe-vremya/znachimye-sobytiya/krestyanskaya-vojna-1670-1671-gg-v-rossii) • [2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php) |
| Government commanders | Voevoda Prince S. I. Lvov (his Astrakhan streltsy went over to the rebels at Cherny Yar); Boyar I. B. Miloslavsky (siege and recovery of the city)[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) |
| Razin's departure from Astrakhan | About 6,000 men by water and about 2,000 cavalry along the shore, late July 1670[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) |
| Razin's fate | Captured at Kagalnik in April 1671 by wealthy Cossacks; executed in Moscow in June 1671[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [5](https://www.unm.edu/~ybosin/documents/razin.pdf) |
## Background and causes
The rising formed part of the peasant war of 1670–1671.[3](https://tatarica.org/ru/razdely/istoriya/novoe-vremya/znachimye-sobytiya/krestyanskaya-vojna-1670-1671-gg-v-rossii) Its cause, as the reference literature states it, was the intensification of serfdom and the sharpening of social contradictions in the second half of the 17th century.[3](https://tatarica.org/ru/razdely/istoriya/novoe-vremya/znachimye-sobytiya/krestyanskaya-vojna-1670-1671-gg-v-rossii) Razin himself, a Don Cossack leader whose parentage and birthplace are unknown, is first recorded in 1661[11](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stenka-Razin) on a diplomatic mission from the [Don Cossacks](https://www.edgepedia.org/don-cossacks) to the Kalmuck Tatars.[6](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Razin%2C_Stephen_Timofeevich)
## Course of events
**The Volga campaign of 1670.** In May 1670 Cossack forces took Tsaritsyn.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) On 6 June 1670, at Cherny Yar, the Astrakhan streltsy of voevoda Prince S. I. Lvov went over to the rebels without a fight.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/)
**The taking of Astrakhan, 22 June 1670.** In the night of 22 June the rebels stormed the city; the rank-and-file streltsy and townspeople offered no resistance, and residents helped the Cossacks onto the walls, as the eyewitness P. Zolotaryov records.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php) Having taken the city, the rebels executed voevoda I. S. Prozorovsky and the streltsy commanders and divided their property among themselves.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/)
**Razin moves up the Volga.** Leaving part of the Cossacks in Astrakhan under Us and Sheludyak, Razin sailed for Tsaritsyn with about 6,000 men, with about 2,000 cavalry moving along the shore; the force reached Tsaritsyn on 29 July 1670.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/)
**Simbirsk, September–October 1670.** In September the rebel army besieged Simbirsk, where voevoda I. B. Miloslavsky held the kremlin; the rebels made four unsuccessful assaults that month.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/)
**Razin's capture and execution.** Around 9 April 1671 wealthy Cossacks attacked the Kagalnik camp and captured Razin and his brother Frol; the brothers were sent to Moscow on 25 April.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) Other accounts give 14 April 1671 as the date of Razin's arrest on the Don.[5](https://www.unm.edu/~ybosin/documents/razin.pdf) • [7](https://chuvenc.ru/show_Publication/2639) The encyclopedic sources date his execution in Moscow to 6 June 1671.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/)
## Conduct of the fighting
In 1670 the Astrakhan streltsy at Cherny Yar changed sides without a fight, and the rank and file of Astrakhan itself offered no resistance to the storm.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) At Simbirsk the rebels' four assaults on the kremlin failed against a fortified position held by regular forces.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) A recent dissertation characterizes the suppression as a full-scale military campaign, with extensive combat over a large territory, significant forces on both sides, and government use of combat experience gained in the external wars of the second half of the 17th century; it identifies two turning points, the defense of Simbirsk in September–October 1670 and the fighting in the Volga region, the Tambov and Shatsk districts, the towns of the Belgorod line, and [Sloboda Ukraine](https://www.edgepedia.org/sloboda-ukraine) in December 1670 – February 1671, by which winter the initiative had passed fully to the government.[8](https://www.mgpu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Dissertatsiya_SHapovalenko-DA.pdf)
## Outcome and losses
Astrakhan outlasted Razin himself.[9](https://aif.ru/society/history/astrahan_vozrozhdenie_volnoy_respubliki_pochemu_byl_opasen_razin) Miloslavsky's troops began the siege of Astrakhan in September 1671, by which time Vasily Us had died.[4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) On 27 November 1671 government troops entered the city.[1](https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm) • [4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) • [2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php)
## Consequences and political influence
Miloslavsky spared Sheludyak, who lived freely in Astrakhan for eight months; he was executed in 1672 by decree of the new governor, Prince Ya. N. Odoyevsky.[10](https://www.aurora-journals.com/library_read_article.php?id=69425) • [9](https://aif.ru/society/history/astrahan_vozrozhdenie_volnoy_respubliki_pochemu_byl_opasen_razin) The Dutch eyewitness Ludwig Fabricius describes quarterings, burnings, and live burials, and the kremlin tower used as a torture chamber is still called the Torture (Pytochnaya) Tower.[2](https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php)
On the eve of the brewing war with Turkey, the uprising also prompted an optimization of army supply and command.[10](https://www.aurora-journals.com/library_read_article.php?id=69425) According to the Chuvash Encyclopedia, toward the non-Russian peoples of the Middle Volga the government took measures easing their condition: yasak collection was entrusted to elected people from among those peoples, and in 1685 a special decree ordered the census and demarcation of Mordvin, Mari, and Chuvash lands and the return to yasak people of lands seized by Russian landowners.[7](https://chuvenc.ru/show_Publication/2639)
## Historians' assessment
Historians characterize the peasant war of 1670–1671 as spontaneous and locally limited, marked by naive monarchism and lacking a mature political program.[4](https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/) Recent research adds a military dimension to this social reading, treating the suppression as a genuine campaign with two distinct turning points rather than a single collapse after Simbirsk.[8](https://www.mgpu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Dissertatsiya_SHapovalenko-DA.pdf) Many Chuvash historical traditions about Razin and his followers have survived.[7](https://chuvenc.ru/show_Publication/2639)
## References
1. Крестьянская война под предводительством С. Т. Разина (Большая советская энциклопедия): https://www.booksite.ru/FullText/1/001/008/066/208.htm
2. Астрахань мятежная: Восстание под руководством Степана Разина: https://www.history.astrakhan.ws/narod_vost2.php
3. Крестьянская война 1670–1671 гг. в России (Tatarica): https://tatarica.org/ru/razdely/istoriya/novoe-vremya/znachimye-sobytiya/krestyanskaya-vojna-1670-1671-gg-v-rossii
4. Крестьянская война под предводительством С. Т. Разина 1670–71 (Советская историческая энциклопедия): https://my-dict.ru/dic/sovetskaya-istoricheskaya-enciklopediya/2114767-krestyanskaya-voyna-pod-predvoditelstvom-s-t-razina-1670-71/
5. Razin's Rebellion (University of New Mexico): https://www.unm.edu/~ybosin/documents/razin.pdf
6. Razin, Stephen Timofeevich (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Razin%2C_Stephen_Timofeevich
7. Разинское восстание и народы Среднего Поволжья (Чувашская энциклопедия): https://chuvenc.ru/show_Publication/2639
8. Шаповаленко Д.А., диссертация о подавлении восстания Разина (МГПУ): https://www.mgpu.ru/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Dissertatsiya_SHapovalenko-DA.pdf
9. Астрахань, возрождение вольной республики (Аргументы и факты): https://aif.ru/society/history/astrahan_vozrozhdenie_volnoy_respubliki_pochemu_byl_opasen_razin
10. Shapovalenko D.A., The struggle of the government of Alexei Mikhailovich with the uprising led by S. T. Razin in the summer and autumn of 1671: https://www.aurora-journals.com/library_read_article.php?id=69425
11. Stenka Razin (britannica.com). https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stenka-Razin
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › History and archaeology › European history › Russia › Early Romanovs (1613 to 1689) › Military, uprisings, and exploration*
*Initially written Sep 24, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 30, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Sep 30, 2026*
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