14. Attempts to Recover Runaway Serfs Once Against Sparked a Major Russian Rebellion
Much of what Tsar Peter the Great did was seen as sacrilege by Russia’s pious peasants and an affront to their Orthodox faith. That, piled atop the peasantry’s preexisting grievances and the oppression and injustice under which they groaned, led to widespread discontent. Accordingly, many of them voted with their feet, and escaped to the Cossack lands, where they could toil and practice their faith in freedom. That left the landlords with a labor shortage, so they pressured the government to recapture the fugitives and restore them to their masters.
In response, Peter the Great ordered a census in the Cossack settlements in 1707. The goal was to identify the runaway serfs, so they could be sent back to Russia and the estates on whose lands they were obligated to toil. An expedition to carry out the Tsar’s decree was seen by the Cossacks as a threat to their freedoms. On the night of October 8th, 1707, Kondraty Bulavin led a Cossack band that fell upon the Tsarist force and wiped it out. It was the first act in a widespread if inchoate, peasant revolt that aimed to march on Moscow.