Stenka Razin
Cossack leader (c. 1630 - 1671)
Stepan Timofeyevich Razin (Russian: Степан Тимофеевич Разин, pronounced [sʲtʲɪˈpan tʲɪmɐˈfʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈrazʲɪn]; c. 1630 – 16 June [O.S. 6 June] 1671), known as Stenka Razin (Стенька [ˈsʲtʲenʲkə]), was a Don Cossack leader who led a major uprising against the nobility and tsarist bureaucracy in southern Russia from 1670 to 1671.
Early life
Razin's father, Timofey Razya, supposedly came from a suburb of Voronezh, a city near Russia's steppe frontier, called the Wild Fields. Razin's uncle and grandmother still lived in the village of New Usman' or Usman' Sobakina, 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) outside of Voronezh, until 1667. The identity of Razin's mother is debated. In one document, Razin was referred to as a tuma Cossack which means "half-blood", leading to a hypothesis that his mother was a captured "Turkish" (turchanka) or Crimean Tatar woman. However, this term was also used by "upper Cossacks" as a derogatory nickname towards all "lower Cossacks" regardless of origin. Another hypothesis draws on information about Razin's godmother Matrena Govorukha. According to tradition, a godmother should be related to a birthmother, and Stenka's godmother lived in the town of Tsarev-Borisov.
Razin was first mentioned in historical sources in 1652, when he asked for permission to go on a long-distance pilgrimage to the great Solovetsky Monastery on the White Sea. In 1661, he was mentioned as part of a diplomatic mission from the Don Cossacks to the Kalmyks.
“Stenka Razin” enters the record as cossack leader (c. 1630 - 1671). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Stenka, Razin and Cossack can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q193175. VIAF identifies the subject as 21042472. The Library of Congress control number is n82233827. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1630, 1671, 1670 and 1667.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stenka Razin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.