Stepan Razin

Stepan Timofeyevich Razin (, ; 1630 – ), known as Stenka Razin, was a Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and tsarist bureaucracy in southern Russia in 1670–1671. Early life Razin's father, Timofey Razya, supposedly came from a suburb of Voronezh, a city near Russia's steppe frontier, called the Wild Fields. Razin's uncle and grandmother still lived in the village of New Usman''' or Usman' Sobakina, outside of Voronezh, until 1667. The identity of Razin's mother is debated. In one document, Razin was referred to as a tuma Cossack which means "half-blood", leading to a hypothesis that his mother was a captured "Turkish" (turchanka) or Crimean Tatar woman. However, this term was also used by "upper Cossacks" as a derogatory nickname towards all "lower Cossacks" regardless of origin. Another hypothesis draws on information about Razin's godmother Matrena Govorukha. According to tradition, a godmother should be related to a birthmother, and Stenka's godmother lived in the town of in Sloboda Ukraine. Thus, Stepan's mother could also be Ukrainian. Razin was first mentioned in historical sources in 1652, when he asked for permission to go on a long-distance pilgrimage to the great Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea. In 1661, he was mentioned as part of a diplomatic mission from the Don Cossacks to the Kalmyks. After that, all trace of him was lost for six years, after which he reappeared as the leader of a robber community established at Panshinskoye, among the marshes between the Tishina and Ilovlya rivers, whence he levied tribute from all vessels passing up and down the Volga. In 1665, his elder brother, Ivan, was executed by order of for unauthorized desertion from the war with the Poles.