Ileika Muromets

Ileika Muromets 

Died 1607 or early 1608. One of the leaders of the Bolotnikov Peasant Uprising of 1606–07. Descended from the posadskie liudi (merchants and artisans) of Murom.

Ileika for several years worked as a hired laborer for tradesmen, later becoming a cossack on the Terek River. In 1605 the cossacks elected him ataman and declared him to be Tsarevich Petr, son of Fedor Ivanovich. In the winter of 1606, Ileika, with a cossack detachment, went out into the Volga region and, after receiving a letter from False Dmitrii I, decided to move on to Moscow. After arriving with his detachment in Putivl’, he left to join Bolotnikov’s detachment in Kaluga. Tula was the strong point for the operations of Ileika’s detachment. On May 3, 1607, on the Pchel’nia River, near Kaluga, it attacked the troops of V. I. Shuiskii and forced them to lift a siege of Bolotnikov’s detachment. Henceforth Ileika, together with Bolotnikov, directed the insurgents’ struggle near Tula. On Oct. 10, 1607, Tula fell, and Ileika was taken prisoner by Shuiskii’s forces and hanged.

REFERENCES

Smirnov, I. I. Vosstanie Bolotnikova 1606—1607, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1951. (See name index.)
Makovskii, D. P. Pervaia krest’ianskaia voina v Rossii. Smolensk, 1967.