]()() The Warrior Tsar, 1689-17258,000 men, most of them gentry cavalry, and on 18 June soundly defeated the
rebels near the Voskresensky monastery, about 50 km. west of the capital.
Rl"trit-'•Jt!on was exacted 3t cncc. Two batche::; uf ringieaders, numbering 56
and 74 respectively, were hanged in public and nearly two thousilnd men exiled.
News of the rebels' defeat reached Peter at Cracow, on his way back to
Moscow from Vienna where he had broken off his tour. He saw,matters dif-
ferently from his principal subordinates: the revolt offered a welcom~ pretext
to destroy the force he so greatly hated. Already in May he had expres5ed sor-
row and anger that Romodanovsky, his security chief, had not launched an
investigation into the insubordinate petitioners, adding .that such laxity went
against earlier decisions-a remark that almost suggests an element of provo-
cation.9 On his return he lost no time in inspecting and handsomely rewarding
the poteshnye.^10 At a social gathering on 4 September he suffered a hysterical
attack and threatened to kill Shein on the spot; only with difficulty could
Lefort calm him down.^11 Ten days later Peter launched a fresh investigation,
the object of which was to link the mutiny with political opposition at the
highest level. The allegations were widely believed by contemporaries (and
later by historians), and although never proven established a pseudo-judicial
basis for a wave of terror against the stre/'tsy.
The main interrogation centre was the headquarters of the poteshnye (or
leyb-gvardiya, as they were now known) at Preobrazhenskoye. This office, the
Preobrazhensky chancellery, had been given a security role as early as 1695.^12
The investigators were interested in extracting con(essions, not in discovering
the actual motives of the accused, whose guilt was taken for granted. In
October 1698, and again early in 1699, Moscow was the scene of mass execu-
tions, clearly staged with an eye to their deterrent effect. A famous historical
painting by Vasiliy Surikov (1881) depicts the victims, bound together and
holding lighted candles, being transported by the cartload to gallows erected
around the Kremlin wall; the people look on sympathetically while the tsar,
accompanied by a bevy of courtiers and foreigners, his new regular troops lined
up behind him, watches the proceedings with a wild and ferocious expression.
The artist's representation is based on the diary of J. G. Korb,^13 the Austrian
secretary of legation, and other primary sources. In the first three-week period
no less than 799 men were executed and 193 sentenced to lesser penalties.^14 On
the second occasion there were several hundred victims (the euct number is
unknown). A mass grave was dug outside the city which contained more than
one thousand bodies. Over it a column was erected which bore an inscription
9 PiB i. 251; Buganov. Mosk. vosstaniya. p. 376.
w 'Petrovskaya brigada", p. 255.
11 Korb, Tagebuch, p. 79.
12 Golikova, Polit. protsessy, p. 14.
I J Korb reported a certain amount of hearsay evidence, but attended at least one of the execu·
tions (Tagebuch, p. 110). Whether Peter actually took a hand personally in theaecutiom. as Korb
states (p. 84). is not certain, but he was definitely among the torturers.
14 Bogoslovsky, Petr I, iii. 118; Buganov, Mosk. vosstaniya, p. 404.