And the The Welcome to Russian History Retold. Episode 129, The Four Rebellion A Final Discussion.

The Piece of Music You Just listen to will be the new and permanent intro to the podcast.

It's known as Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition by Russian composer Modeste Morsorski.

Last time we recounted the story of the end of the largest of the four rebellions,

led by Emmelien Pugachov.

Today I'm going to look back on the four

insurrection in the context of what we know about Russian history today and

the world. So what caused these four rebellions to become so large and

violent? It can be said that it was because of the

harsh conditions faced by the peasants that resulted in the explosion of a hostility towards

their masters. But that would be overly simplistic and mass the fact

that the peasants represented a small fraction of the fighting rebel armies. The

Cossacks played large roles in all of the insurrections, as did tribal interests like the Bashkirs, especially in the Pugachev Rebellion.

No, it was more than just bad conditions that played a role in this part of Russian history.

One thing that we can say decisively is that the relationship between the centralized government

and the average person was undergoing massive change during that time, much like the

perceived changes going on here in America.

What I'm going to say here may offend some of you, but honestly, there's no intention here. I'm just trying to put

historical events into perspective and not making any moral judgment. So if some of you are

offended by what I'm about to say. I apologize ahead of time. The majority of the

peasant population was deeply conservative and very anti-big government. From the time of

Ivan the Terrible through the reign of Catherine the Great, we have a massive consolidation of power into the hands of the monarchy.

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