This woman combined things that were incomparable for the 17th century - she was a nun, a rebel and a witch. She shot from a bow, treated people with mold and had incredible authority among ordinary people. Like many other extraordinary personalities who came out of the people, Alena Arzamasskaya ended her life tragically, but even her death was special and edifying.
Three centuries later, three peoples are fighting for the right to call Alena Arzamasskaya their own: Russians, Mokshans and Erzyans. This woman was born in Mordovia in a Cossack family, but became a heroine for everyone who lived and lives between the Oka and the Volga.
Alena was born near Arzamas in the Cossack village of Vyezdnaya Sloboda. History for posterity has not preserved neither the year of her birth, nor the details of the young years of her life. It is only known that Alena was very early married to a wealthy peasant who was much older than her.
The girl's family life did not last long - soon her husband fell ill and died. It was not easy to get married for the second time at that time, and living alone is even worse, so Alena chose a simple and worthy path for herself - she went to the Nicholas Monastery in Arzamas.
Honestly, it was then that Alena got her name, by which we know her, since no one knows what she was given at birth. Life in the monastery was good for the Cossack woman. There she not only learned to read and write, but also mastered medicine.
In the 17th century, the monasteries were treated with herbs and prayers, since everything else was considered witchcraft and censured. But Alena had a special approach to treatment - she used blue mold, which she collected in the monastery bathhouse, as medicine. Ointments made from a substance considered by the people to be useless and even harmful, perfectly healed purulent wounds and skin diseases.
Local peasants willingly received treatment from Alena, but they gossiped among themselves that her help could not do without devilry. The bathhouse, where the woman took her medicine, was traditionally considered the abode of evil spirits. But the fact that the healer lived in a monastery was somewhat reassuring. It also played a role that for many Alena's help was the last hope for a cure.
Historical sources say that Alena spent at least 20 years in the monastery, helping everyone who turned to her for treatment. She decided to leave her monastery for a very unusual reason - she was imbued with the ideas of Stepan Razin, who was talked about in 1667.
The decision to take part in the peasant war came to nun Alena in 1669. She took a bow and arrows, mounted a horse and rode through the surrounding villages to collect the militia. The authority of the sorceress allowed her in a short time to put together a detachment of 300-400 people, with whom the woman won her first victories over the tsarist troops.
Stepan Razin. V. I. Surikov. 1906 year
In 1670 Alena's detachment united with a group of peasants of Fyodor Sidorov and its number was 700 people. With this impressive force by the standards of that time, she utterly defeated the army of the Arzamas governor Leonty Shaisukov and captured the city of Temnikov.
The log house was good in that it deprived those present of the spectacle of the torture of the executed, which was considered pious and merciful. Repentance did not overtake Alena even in the face of death - the woman herself entered the well. While the fire was burning from the log house, not a single sound was heard - the courageous nun did not deliver a single moment of celebration to her executioners.
Sentenced to be burned in a log house
The story of Alena Arzamasskaya was so unusual that it became widely known not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The famous German historian of the 17th century Johann Fisch in his book described the execution of this woman in the following words:
A few days after Razin's execution, a nun was burned, who, being at the same time with him, like an Amazon, surpassed men in her unusual courage. other flammable things, and, crossing herself and performing other rituals, boldly jumped into it, slammed the lid behind her and, when everything was engulfed in flames, did not make a sound. Despite the fact that very little is known about Alena Arzamasskaya, novels, poems and plays have been written about this woman. This Mordovian Jeanne D'Arc, who fought for freedom and justice, left a solid mark in the history of the Russian late Middle Ages and is still revered in her homeland, in Mordovia. See also: Russian scientists showed the face of a Scythian king, Morgenstern - a simple and terrible weapon of the Middle Ages, False Dmitry I: an adventurer impostor or the first reformer tsar?
