Ермак Тимофеевич: казак-первопроходец Сибири

Russian cossack explorer and pirate

Yermak Timofeyevich (Ермак Тимофеевич, ; born between 1532 – August 5 or 6, 1585) was a Cossack ataman and is today a hero in Russian folklore and myths. During the reign of the Russian tsar Ivan the Terrible, Yermak started the Russian conquest of Siberia. Russians' fur trade interests fueled their desire to expand east into Siberia. The Tatar Khanate of Kazan was established by Ulugh Muhammad as the best entryway into Siberia. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible's modernized army toppled the khanate. After the takeover of Kazan, the tsar looked to the powerful and affluent Stroganov merchant family to spearhead the eastward expansion. In the late 1570s, the Stroganovs recruited Cossack fighters to invade Asia on behalf of the tsar. These Cossacks elected Yermak as the leader of their armed forces, and in 1582 Yermak set out with an army of 840 to attack the Khanate of Sibir. On October 26, 1582, Yermak and his soldiers overthrew Kuchum Khan's Tatar empire at Qashliq in a battle that marked the "conquest of Siberia". Yermak remained in Siberia and continued his struggle against the Tatars until 1584, when a raid organized by Kuchum Khan ambushed and killed him and his party. The specifics of Yermak's life, such as his appearance, background, and dates of events, remain points of controversy for historians because the texts that document his life are not reliable. However, his life and conquests had a profound influence on Siberian relations, sparking Russian interest in the region and establishing the Tsardom of Russia as an imperial power east of the Urals.

There is less information about Yermak than most other notable explorers and historical figures. Much of what we know about Yermak is derived from folklore and legend. There are no contemporary descriptions of Yermak and all portraits are merely estimations. but even this detailed account is not reliable because the narrator had never seen Yermak. Russian writer Valentin Rasputin laments the lack of information that we have about Yermak considering the vast scope of his contributions to Russian society. Knowledge of Yermak's upbringing and voyages pales in comparison to that of other explorers. Historians encounter serious difficulties when attempting to piece together the specifics of Yermak's life and exploits because the two key, primary sources about Yermak may be biased or inaccurate. These sources are the Stroganov Chronicle and the Sinodnik. The Stroganov Chronicle was commissioned by the Stroganov family itself, therefore it exaggerates the family's involvement in the conquest of Siberia. The Sinodik is an account of Yermak's campaign written forty years after his death by the archbishop of Tobolsk, Cyprian (Kipriyan). The text was formed based on oral tradition and memories of his expedition but almost certainly was affected by the archbishop's desire to canonize Yermak. The combination of forgotten details over time and the embellishment or omission of facts in order for Yermak to be accepted as a saint suggests that the Sinodik could be erroneous. To escape poverty, he moved south to Vladimir where he became a coachman in the Murom forests. In the Murom forests, the voyevoda arrested him for driving unscrupulous passengers – robbers who had hired him. Afonasiy's son (Yermak's father) Timofey relocated to the Stroganov lands on the Chusovaya in order to make money.

Yermak worked in the Stroganovs' river fleet as a porter and a sailor transporting salt along the Kama and the Volga rivers. Growing tired of his work, he assembled a gang, left his employment, and moved to the Don region to become a river pirate. Among his fellow Cossack bandits, he acquired the nickname Yermak. Prior to his conquest of Siberia, Yermak's combat experience consisted of leading a Cossack detachment for the tsar in the Livonian War of 1558–83 and plundering merchant ships. Based on legends and folk songs, for years, Yermak had been involved in robbing and plundering on the Volga with the hetman Ivan Kolzo and four other Cossack leaders. Like many other Cossacks, Yermak's gang was involved in the “thieves” trade (“vorovskim” remeslom). Though a bandit, Yermak earned a reputation as an eminent and loyal Russian fighter. Through his experience fighting in the Livonian War, he learned war tactics and excelled beyond the other hetmans in skill. The Russians decided that taking a southern route through the Tatar khanate of Kazan would allow them to penetrate Siberia more easily, but Kazan would need to be overthrown first. Ivan the Terrible's first foreign objective upon rising to power was to take Kazan. Ivan the Terrible's modernized army proved successful at the beginning of October 1552 and Ivan proceeded to open up the east to enterprising Russian individuals, such as the Stroganovs. Anika Stroganov used the former khanate of Kazan as an entryway into Siberia and established a private empire on the southwest corner of Siberia. The tsar also gave the Stroganovs permission to expand into the territory along the Tobol and Irtysh Rivers which belonged to the Muslim leader Kuchum Khan. The Stroganovs proceeded to launch expeditions eastward into non Russian territories. They pushed into the khanate of Sibir, the sister state of the former khanate of Kazan, because it maintained control over Siberia's fur in the west. Kuchum Khan built up allies among his neighbors and the Crimean Tatars in order to thwart the Stroganovs’ expansion across the Urals. In July 1572, Kuchum launched his first raid on Stroganov settlements, which resulted in almost one hundred deaths. In 1573, the Tatar army expanded and changed leadership. Kuchum's nephew, Mahmet kul, assumed control of the Tatar army. The Stroganovs realized that they could no longer expect their settlers to remain in the lands around Perm if they only fought a defensive battle. The tsar granted the Stroganov family permission to invade Asia. However, the tsar soon changed his mind and told the Stroganovs to retract from Siberia, fearing that Russia did not have the resources or manpower to topple Kuchum Khan's empire. Since Yermak had been the most illustrious of the recruits, he became the captain (ataman) of the “conquest of Siberia.” Perhaps the Stroganovs told the story in a way that would inspire the Russian people to feel just as indebted to them as to Yermak for the conquest of Siberia. Siberian historians are divided on the matter, some believing that the Stroganovs were behind Yermak's campaign and others believing that they played no part in it.

The precise details of Yermak's death are lost to history, but legend has preserved multiple variations of the account. The most common account is that Kuchum purposely leaked information to Yermak, in which it was claimed that Bukharan merchants from Central Asia, traveling with large amounts of food, were being prevented from moving by Kuchum's men. Yermak's force stopped on a small island formed by two branches of the Irtysh and set up camp on the night of August 4–5, 1584. Yermak, finding that their boats had been washed away in the storm, attempted to cross the river. Due to the weight of the armor gifted to him by the Tsar, Yermak sank to the bottom and drowned. However, it is said that animals did not feed on him and his body produced no odor and that the corpse caused fear and nightmares in the people. Heeding these omens, the Tatars buried him as a hero, killing thirty oxen in his name. His prized armor was eventually distributed among the Tatar chiefs. The original band of men had dwindled to 150 fighters, and command now fell to Glukhoff, the leader of the initial group of reinforcements that the tsar had delivered to Yermak. The Cossacks soon decided to abandon Qashliq and to retreat to Russia. Before traveling a great distance, they ran into a group of one hundred reinforcements that had been sent as additional strength from the tsar. With this upturn in fortune, Yermak's band resolved to return to Qashliq and refortify their position in accordance with the tsar's will. The fast acting and perceptive Tatars, however, had been informed of the group's flight and had retaken the city almost immediately, preventing any peaceful reoccupation of their former stronghold. Although the Tatar position appeared strong, they were no longer led by Kuchum, who had lost his power, and were thus not as stable as before. Furthermore, another three hundred reinforcements from the tsar soon arrived to join the Russians. Led by Tchulkoff, this new force provided a significant boost in fighting strength to the party. Despite the tumultuous state of the Tatar leadership and their newly received recruits, however, the Russians did not pursue another attempt on Qashliq. Instead, in a culmination of the events immediately following Yermak's fatal plunge, they founded a new settlement in 1587 on the site of what would become Tobolsk, a comfortable twelve miles from Qashliq. Although the Tatars quickly began raids against their familiar foe, after a short period they ceased, leaving the Russians to their new town. This trend grew exponentially after Yermak's death, as his legend spread through the domain rapidly and, with it, the news of a land rich in furs and vulnerable to Russian influence. Colonization attempts soon followed, as Tyumen, the first known town after Yermak's death, was founded in 1586. Yermak had set a precedent of Cossack involvement in Siberian expansion, and the exploration and conquests of these men were responsible for many of the additions to the Russian empire in the east. After the initial return of the Cossacks shortly after Yermak's death, an ambitious project of fortification began under the direction of Tsar Boris Godunov. Its achievements, including the extension of protection for Russians in the region, would drive even greater numbers of entrepreneurs to Siberia. In 1590, Tobolsk received a significant boost in prominence as it was dubbed the principal city and administrative center of the region. The fur trade also continued to grow, aided by the Cossacks, who in 1593 established the trading center of Berezof on the Ob River at the sixty fourth latitude. The practice of collecting tributes of fur from the natives continued to spread, and in the 17th century such furs made up 25–33 percent of the income to the tsar's treasury. Even so, the Russians did not rest on their laurels, and the attitude and pace of expansion pioneered by Yermak continued well into the 17th century. Indeed, within the first half of the century the fort of Yeniseysk was established in 1619, the city of Yakutsk founded in 1632, and the important feat of reaching the Sea of Okhotsk on the Pacific coast in 1639. Throughout these campaigns, Yermak's influence was undeniable, as the pace he had established for achievement in his relatively short time in Siberia heralded a new age of Russian pioneering. Yermak's life and conquests had a significant impact on Russian policy towards Siberia and the colonization attempts that followed this shift. Prior to Yermak's agreement with the Strogonovs, the Russian attitude towards the Siberian expanse had been one preoccupied primarily with defense, not aggression. The top priority was the repelling of the Tatar hordes, and, as shown by Ivan's letter to the Strogonovs, the central government rarely involved itself unless the tribes succeeded in entering Russian territory. This, of course, changed with Yermak, whose triumphs showed that the Tatars could be put on the defensive and that Russia could now establish itself as an aggressive power in the East. This newfound commitment and involvement in the area is best summarized by Ivan's acceptance of the title bestowed upon him by Yermak: “Tsar of Sibir.” Yermak's pioneering further enabled this system to exist because it depended on the success he achieved in gaining tribute from conquered peoples. Much like Yermak, future troops were sent with the understanding that it would be necessary to supplement their base payment with treasures and tributes gained from conquest. Without this system in place, it is unlikely such an arrangement would have come to fruition. Future explorers would also take notice of Yermak's strategy in approaching the Siberian lands, which, unlike those in many other colonization attempts, already had an established imperial power. However, Yermak wisely recognized that Kuchum's territories were not unified. Yermak noted that many of these peoples were nothing more than vassals and that they were quite diverse in terms of race, language, and religion. Unlike Kuchum and his Mohammedan Tatars, many of these groups were pagan. Due to the sum of these differences, many simply paid tribute to avoid trouble, and it mattered little to whom the tribute was paid. Yermak's unique strength was thus in recognizing the bigger picture and playing it to his advantage, first identifying and then executing quick, efficient ways to establish influence in the region. This new arrangement also acted as a sort of pressure relief valve for the Cossacks, who had a history of being troublesome on the Russian frontier. In sending as many of them as possible further east into unconquered lands, the burgeoning and extremely profitable lands on the borders of Russian territory were given respite. Furthermore, this realignment was not without criticism, however, and some saw Yermak as a traitor to the Cossack name. Such detractors saw Yermak's death as punishment for turning away from the Cossack code and becoming a pawn of the tsar. Fittingly, then, it was his armor, the very symbol of the tsar, that dragged him down to his fate. The back of the monument reads: “To the Don Cossack Ataman Ermak Timofeyevich, the Siberia conqueror from the grateful posterity. In honor of Don Cossack Army 300th Anniversary. He passed away in Irtysh waves on August 5, 1584.” Some believe that Yermak was born in the village of Kachalinskaya on the Don. Though this region has long claimed Yermak to be one of its own, there is no evidence that he was born there or ever visited. There is also a statue of Yermak at Tobolsk and one in the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg designed by Mark Antokolsky. In commemoration of Yermak, there is a town named after him on the upper Irtysh.

Yermak makes an appearance in the 1947 film Tale of the Siberian Land (Skazanie o zemle sibirskoi) directed by Ivan Pyryev. The movie tells the story of a pianist named Andrei who moves to Siberia to work at a paper processing plant after being wounded in World War II and losing his faith in music. Once in Siberia, Andrei reunites with a female singer with whom he had been in love in Moscow. When nothing comes of their second encounter, he heads far north in Siberia and becomes so enamored with the might of Soviet construction projects that he composes a choral symphony entitled the ‘Tale of Siberian Land.’ Andrei is then reunited with his beloved who finds him in the depths of Siberia. The two travel to Moscow where Andrei's symphony is performed in the Conservatory. The symphony tells his life story while presenting the “mysterious, wild, silver grey” landscape of Siberia to the audience. In displaying the “extreme might of the land,” he conveys “the extreme heroism of the Russian and Soviet conquest of Siberia.” The symphony introduces Yermak as a mighty figure who “made his way through the fog and mist to do battle with Siberia.”
The film then begins a visual montage which traces Russian history and the representation of the Russian landscape over time. Yermak is shown as a “pantomime hero” leading his forces into battle. Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis describe that “here, the director taps into the folk imagination and the landscape that he evokes is plainly the landscape of the epic. As the battle ends, the natural world itself expresses the majesty of Yermak’s achievement. Fire turns into lightning, and then the rain begins: the conquest of the elements is complete, as nature bows down in the face of Russian strength, and Siberia is conquered.” The montage then shifts to show the landscape as softer, flatter, and gentler. Andrei proceeds to describe the process through which Yermak's descendants continued to dominate Siberia. Ultimately, Yermak is portrayed as the hero who launched the conquest that shaped the whole of Russia. In 1996, directors Vladimir Krasnopolsky and Valeri Uskov produced the film Yermak, a historical drama about the conquest of Siberia which starred Viktor Stepanov, Irina Alfyorova, and Nikita Dzhigurda.

There are many folk songs and much poetry about Yermak which contribute to our vision of the hero. By tracing the transformation of folk songs and poetry about Yermak since his death, it is possible to see how his status as a legendary figure has evolved over time. Over 150 songs about Yermak's exploits have been collected and spread throughout all of Russia since the 18th century. Though most folk songs are not entirely consistent with the historical accounts of Yermak's life, there are many similarities and much overlap among the different songs. There are often several versions of the same song that share certain details but differ on others. I. I. Dmitriyev (1760–1837) wrote the dramatic poem “Yermak” and K. P. Ryleyev (1795–1826) in 1821 wrote a poem entitled “The death of Yermak.”

Yermak makes an appearance in Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, in a standalone scenario based on his conquest of Cape Chuvash, as part of the Historical Battles.