Bulavin Rebellion The Bulavin Rebellion ( Astrakhan Revolt ) is the name given to a war of Don Cossacks against Imperial Russia between the years 1707 and 1708 . The war was led by Kondraty Bulavin , a democratically elected Ataman of Don Cossacks . The war was triggered by a number of underlying tensions between the Imperial government under Peter I of Russia , the Cossacks , and Russian peasants fleeing from serfdom in Russia to gain freedom in the autonomous Don area . It started with the assassination of Prince Yury Dolgorukov , the leader of Imperial army ' s punitive expedition to the Don area , by Don Cossacks under Bulavin ' s command . The end of the rebellion is associated with Bulavin ' s death in 1708 . Underlying causes . A number of social grievances were prevalent in the peasant population of Russia in the years leading up to the Bulavin Rebellion . Peter the Great ' s radical reforms designed to " Westernize " old Muscovy in the 18th century were met with widespread discontent . The pious , deeply conservative masses saw his reforms as an affront to their traditional way of life and to their Orthodox faith . Peter was even equated to the Anti - Christ and assumed to be an impostor posing as the true Tsar . On top of this , Peter ' s newly formed police state was expanding territorially , and by this expansion was encroaching upon salt resource sites coveted by the Cossacks for preservation of their foods . This dispute over land was in one sense an economic issue , but the Cossacks also regarded this as an intrusion upon their semi - autonomous political state . In general , the entire rural Russian atmosphere was in an agitated state , waiting for a catalyst of some kind . Immediate catalyst . In response to the constraints and fears of living in Peter ' s police state , large numbers of serf s absconded , abandoning the major urban areas , especially Moscow and the new capital at St . Petersburg . While some groups emigrated to Poland or Austria , many chose to avoid the border patrols and instead fled to the rural periphery and the river regions already inhabited by the Cossacks . It was Peter ' s policy to hunt down and arrest absconders and return them to their lords where they could be counted for taxes , a policy which , by this time , had no statute of limitations . In accordance with this policy , Peter deployed a group of bounty hunter s under Yuri Dolgoruki to scout the Cossack regions for fugitive peasants . Despite the fact that the Cossacks harbored some resentment towards the peasants ( for overpopulating their region and generally competing for local resources ) , more deplorable to them was the idea of Petrine agents roaming freely through their territory . They not only refused to give up the fugitive peasants , but on October 8 , 1707 , a small band of local " ataman s " headed by Kondrati Bulavin ambushed and murdered Dolgoruki and his men in the village of Shulgin on the Aidar River , opening the door to violence and beginning the Bulavin Rebellion . Bulavin the Man . Little is known about Bulavin personally , but he was born into a Cossack family and would have been old enough to remember Stenka Razin and the revolt of the late 17th century . He developed some combat experience fighting the Kuban and Crimean Tatars in his youth . However , he was never a particularly great military commander , and throughout the rebellion that bears his name , he would forever fall short of becoming an undisputed leader . By 1704 , he had risen to the status of ataman of Bakhmut , a position he held until 1706 . It was during this stint that he orchestrated and participated in the destruction of the salt works on the Severski Donets , an act of retaliation for having been evicted by the government as squatter s . This conflict was never entirely resolved and was ultimately absorbed into the greater rebellion as it gained momentum . Bulavin was most likely illiterate , but like his contemporary revolutionaries , he possessed a talent for appealing to the people and inciting them to action . General details . Bulavin ' s rally cries were simple : the goal was to move against Moscow and destroy the evil influences on the Tsar . It is important to note that the rebellion was not against the institution of Tsardom but against the figures in power at the time . It was generally believed that Peter was either not who he claimed ( i . e . the Antichrist sitting in place of the true Tsar who was hidden away ) , or that he was indeed the rightful Tsar but was under the control of evil advisers whose destruction would liberate him , and that if given the freedom to act , he would repudiate all of his wicked reforms . The rebellion suffered from a number of weaknesses . For one , despite all of his rallying , Bulavin never offered a pretender to the throne or suggested a " just tsar " to replace Peter . This blunder would condemn the rebellion ' s end goals to ambiguity and would let slip an immeasurable amount of support he might have mustered . Second , Bulavin did not coordinate his efforts with any other pre - existing Muscovite enemies , so despite being heavily engaged in war with Sweden , the military apparatus under Peter was not as divided as it could have been and found the rebellion to be more of a nuisance than a major conflict . By means of its vastly superior size and efficiency , the regular army was ultimately capable of stamping out the rebellion at all levels . In the end , angered by devastating reversals and Bulavin ' s tiring claims , factions of his own Cossack followers turned against him . He was found dead on July 7 , 1708 , having been shot in the head . It is not known whether the wound was self - inflicted or an act of treachery . Following Bulavin ' s death , the rebellion petered out , with pockets of resistance persisting through 1709 , but for all intents and purposes , the conflict was over . Political and social aftermath . As mentioned , the Bulavin Rebellion bore striking similarities to Razin ' s Revolt a generation earlier . Both were Cossack rebellions in part , aimed against an imposing governmental institution and driven by animosity for the miserable state of peasant life . They effectively set the stage for the Pugachev Uprising under Catherine the Great . In response to the uprising , Peter tightened his grip on the Cossack states , causing some 2000 under Ignat Nekrasov to flee to the protection of the Crimean Khanate . Descendants of these Nekrasovites would relocate to Anatolia during the Pugachev Uprising and settle near Constantinople , where their traditional culture would continue to the present day . External links .