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The part of the country which seemed best adapted for experiments of this kind was the southern and southeastern region, inhabited by the descendants of the turbulent Cossack population which had raised formidable insurrections under Stenka Razin and Pugatcheff in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Here, then, the more impatient agitators began their work.
"Do you then represent the 'new-born strength of the world," she said, looking at him with observant, curious eyes, but without irony, "or is your name a secret?" "Would it frighten you if I named it?" "What could it mean to me if you did disclose it? What is it?" "Mark Volokov. In this silly place my name is heard with nearly as much terror as if it were Pugachev or Stenka Razin."
Have you noticed that it is the most civilised gentlemen who have been the subtlest slaughterers, to whom the Attilas and Stenka Razins could not hold a candle, and if they are not so conspicuous as the Attilas and Stenka Razins it is simply because they are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to us.
The young people who now leave their place in society and lead the life of the people would form an invincible, collective Stenka Razin, who would put themselves at the head of the fight for emancipation, and carry it through successfully. For this purpose they should not merely turn to the peasants and make them revolt, but also call in the help of robbers.
Snow-storms galloping snowy chargers howled over the Steppe, the Volga, and the town. Elemental, all-devastating, as in the days of Stenka Razin thundered the Revolution. The rooms in the ancient mansion were damp, dark and chilly.
When Pougatchoff, a century later, in 1773-1775, urged the Cossacks and serfs to insurrection against Catherine II, the Russian people saw in him a new Stenka Razin; and they expected in Russia, in 1869 and the following years, a third centennial apparition of the legendary brigand who, in the minds of the oppressed people, personified revolt.
"Every one for some inexplicable reason keeps foisting a flag upon me. Pyotr Verhovensky, too, is convinced that I might' raise his flag, that's how his words were repeated to me, anyway. He has taken it into his head that I'm capable of playing the part of Stenka Razin for them, 'from my extraordinary aptitude for crime, his saying too."
They sang of Stenka Razin, the bandit chief, who kept the Volga and the Caspian Sea in a state of terror during the reign of Peter the Great's father; of his "poor people, good youths, fugitives, who were no thieves nor brigands, but only Stenka Razin's workmen."
The Cossack infantry is represented on the other side of this wagon. On another wagon is a very jolly picture of Stenka Razin in his boat with little old-fashioned brass cannon, rowing up the river. Underneath is written the words: "I attack only the rich, with the poor I divide everything."
The twilight spread gently over the town, and through its dusky, star-spangled veil, loomed the old Cathedral reminiscent of Stenka Razin; now and then came the chime of its deep-toned bells. The Tartars at length succeeding in striking a bargain, rolled the goods up into neat little packs with their customary promptitude, paid out Kerensky notes from their bulging purses and left.
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