Peter's Soldiers IOI
detailing the men's crimes-a symbolic gesture which plainly indicates that the
repression was as much an act of belated vengeance for the 1682 revolt 11~ 11
response to the threat of subversion at the time.^15
Most of those musketeers whose lives were spared found themselves sent to
the south, a measure which (a~ in 1682) had the unintended effect of making
people in this sensitive region aware of the events in Moscow. In December
1698 there was disaffection among strel 'tsy stationed at Belgorod and 60 of
these men were taken to the capital for questioning. A few months later trouble
broke out in the garrison at Azov where, oddly, the musketeers were urged to
revolt by an ex-Preobrazhensky guardsman who had taken religious vows.16
According to Korb the men hoped for aid from other dissident elements in the
steppe lands and even from the Crimean Tatars.1^7 They evidently realized that
Peter was determined to exterminate them and wanted to die fighting.
Many years later the tsar recalled that after the executions he had so distrusted
the rest of the strertsy corps that 'all their regiments were cashiered [skasovany]
and [the men] scattered in various towns, wherever they wished to go'.^18 Neither
statement is accurate. Recent research has shown that, whatever Peter's inten-
tions may have been, the musketeers survived for some time. The main reason
for this was that their services were needed in the European war in which Russia
soon became engaged. Thus, of the Azov strertsy charged with indiscipline only
111 were assigned to other units, while the rest were posted to Smolensk or
Sevsk and retained their organizational identity until they were eventually
reclassified as soldaty. Some saw action in the Baltic theatre. Moreover, in
1702-3 six new musketeer regiments were formed, two of which were sent to
join the inter-allied auxiliary corps in Poland and Saxony, where they were all
but wiped out at ths; battle of Fraustadt (February 1706); only a handful
managed to fight theii: way back to the Russian lines.^19
By this time stref'tsy and other troops stationed at Astrakhan·, on the south-
eastern perimeter of the realm, had risen up in what has been called 'one 'of the
greatest military insurrections in Russian history'.^20 For nearly nine months
(July 1705-March 1706) they held the city in their grasp, but they were unable to
extend their sway to the Don Cossacks, who were to revolt independently two
years later under the leadership of Kondratiy Bulavin. Thus the government was
in a position to deal with its enemies separately. Of the 500 Astrakhan· rebels
taken to Moscow for indictment, 60 per cent were strertsy; in all several
hundred men were put to death.^21 This was more than a military mutiny and
is Ustryalov, /storiya, iii. 239-40; Bogoslovsky, Petr I, iv. 19-30; Buganov, Mosk. vosstaniya,
p. 406.
16 Ustryalov, Jstoriya, iii. 232-S; Rabinovich, 'Strertsy', p. 297: Buganov, Mosk. vosstaniya,
p. 409. 11 Korb, Tagebuch, p. 123.
18 [Peter I] Zhurnal, i. 3. To Patriarch Dosifey in Constantinople he wrote that 20,000 men had
been destroyed: Bogoslovsky, Petr/, iv. 173.
(^19) Rabinovich, 'Strel)sy', pp. 285-6; id., Sud"by, pp. 11 ff.; PSZ iv. 1979.
20 Rabinovich, 'Strel"tsy', p. 287. Rabinovich's characterization is contested by Golikova, who
has since published an excellent detailed study of the rising: Astr. vosstaniye (see pp. 28-9).
21 Golikova, Astr. vosstaniye, pp. 306-7.