Frol Razin

Born after 1630, in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Zimoveiskaia-na-Donu; died 1676. Participant in the peasant war led by S. T. Razin, his brother.

F. T. Razin lived in Cherkassk during the late 1660’s. In the second raid, which was launched in the spring of 1670 from the town of Cherkassk-na-Donu, he went with his brother to Astrakhan and later to Tsaritsyn. From there, he traveled to the Don with the treasury seized in Astrakhan. F. T. Razin commanded detachments of insurgents near the headwaters of the Don. Late in September 1670 he led a raid on the town of Ko-rotiak. Together with his brother S. T. Razin, he was taken prisoner, sent to Moscow, tortured, and sentenced to death. On the day of his brother’s execution, in 1671, F. T. Razin promised to reveal an important state secret (slow i delo gosudarevo). As a result, he died later—according to some sources, during another round of tortures, and according to others, in 1676, when he is said to have been executed.