The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

At the moment when the states of Kutchum were to become the conquest of the Russian Pizarro—as redoubtable for the savages as he of Spain, but less terrible for humanity—the Prince of Pelim with the Vogulitches, the Ostiaks, the Siberian Tartars, and the Bashkirs made a sudden irruption upon the borders of the Kama. He destroyed the Russian colonies near Tcherdin, Ussolie, as well as many other new fortresses of the Stroganoffs, and put to death or dragged into captivity a great number of Christians who were deprived of defenders. But at the news of the march of the Cossacks against Siberia he left our frontiers to fly to the defence of his own states.

The crime of these depredations was laid to the Stroganoffs. Upon a report of Basile Pilepitsin, Governor of Tcherdin, Ivan wrote him that he was either unable on unwilling to look after the frontiers. "You have taken upon yourself," he added, "to recall proscribed Cossacks, true bandits, whom you have sent to make war upon Siberia. This enterprise, suited to irritate the Prince of Pelim and the sultan Kutchum, is a treason worthy of the last punishment! I command you to cause Iermak and his companions to start without delay for Perm and Ussolie on the Kama, where they may be able to efface their faults by forcing the Ostiaks and the Vogulitches to submission. You may retain at the most one hundred Cossacks for the security of your little towns. In case you shall not execute my commands to the letter, if in the future Perm has still to suffer the attacks of the Prince of Pelim or of the Sultan of Siberia, I shall overwhelm you with the weight of my disgrace and I shall have all those traitors of Cossacks hanged." This menacing despatch made the Stroganoffs tremble. Nevertheless, a brilliant, unexpected success justified their enterprise and changed into favor the wrath of their sovereign.

In beginning the story of the exploits of Iermak we shall at first say that, like everything that is extraordinary, they have made a strong impression upon the imagination of the vulgar, and have given birth to many fables, which are confused in the traditions with the real facts. Under the title of "annals" they have led the historians themselves into error. It is thus, for instance, that some hundreds of warriors, led by Iermak, have been metamorphosed into an army, and, like the soldiers of Cortés or Pizarro, have been counted as thousands. The months became years. A somewhat difficult navigation appeared marvellous. Leaving at one side the fabulous assertions we shall, for the principal facts, base our statements upon official documents and on the most truthful contemporaneous account of a conquest which was, indeed, of a most surprising character.

In the first place, the Cossacks ascended, for four days, the course of the Tchusovaya, rapid and sown with rocks, as far as the chain of the Ural Mountains. The two following days, in the shadow of the masses of stone with which the interior of these mountains is covered, they reached, by means of the river Serebrennaia, the passage called the "Route of Siberia." There they stopped, and, ignorant of what might next happen to them, they constructed for their safety a kind of redoubt to which they gave the name of kokui. They had so far found only deserts and a small number of inhabitants. Then they moved, towing their small crafts as far as the river of Iaravle. These places are, even to this day, marked by the monuments of Iermak; rocks, caverns, remains of fortifications, bear his name. It is asserted that the big boats abandoned by him between the Serebrennaia and the Barantcha are not, in our time, entirely decayed, and that lofty trees shade their ruins, half reduced to dust. By the Iaravle and the Taghil the Cossacks, reaching the Tura, which waters one of the provinces of the empire of Siberia, for the first time drew the sword of conquerors. At the place where the city of Turinsk now stands there then existed a little town, the domain of the prince Yepantcha. He commanded a large number of Tartars and Vogulitches, and received these audacious strangers with a hail of arrows, shot from the banks of the river, at the place where is seen the present village of Usseninovo; but, frightened by a discharge of artillery, he forthwith took flight. Iermak caused the town to be destroyed, of which the name alone remains, for the residents still give to Turinsk the name "Town of Yepantcha." The camps and villages situated along the Tura were devastated.