Bezdna Uprising of 1861

a peasant uprising in Kazan Province in response to the peasant reform of 1861. It began in April 1861 in the village of Bezdna, Spassk District, where the peasant Anton Petrov interpreted some articles of the Acts of February 19 in the interest of the peasants. In his interpretation, true freedom meant that the peasants were not obliged to work for the landlord and that all the land belonged to the peasants. The news about this interpretation rapidly spread and peasants began streaming into Bezdna, until some 10,000 had arrived. The disturbances spread to more than 75 villages of Spassk, Chistopol’, and Laishevo districts of Kazan Province and to several districts of Simbirsk and Samara provinces. The peasants refused obedience to the local administration, selected officials from their own midst, refused to do corvée for the landlords, and divided the landlords’ grain. On Apr. 12 two companies of the Tarutino Regiment, commanded by Major General Count A. S. Apraksin, entered Bezdna. The peasants categorically refused to surrender Petrov. He was arrested only after six volleys into the mass of unarmed peasants. According to official data, 91 persons were killed and 87 wounded. According to the report of the doctor who attended the wounded, the overall number of casualties exceeded 350 people. By an order of Alexander II, Petrov was tried by a military tribunal and shot in public on Apr. 19, 1861. Many peasants were whipped in punishment and sentenced to prison. The firing at unarmed peasants caused indignation and protests of the democratic intelligentsia in Russia and abroad. Students of the University of Kazan and of the Ecclesiastical Academy organized a protest requiem for the victims of the Bezdna massacre, where A. P. Shchapov delivered a speech. A. I. Herzen’s The Bell published several articles on the Bezdna events (June 1 and 15, July 1, 1861; Feb. 15, Mar. 1 and 15, 1862). The Bezdna uprising and the response to it were an important element in the revolutionary atmosphere of 1859–61 in Russia.