Kuzma Minin, Kuzma Minich, Kuzma Zakharovich Minin nicknamed Sukhoruk, Kirisha Minnibayev or Mininbayev (? — May 21, 1616) — Russian national hero, organizer and one of the leaders of the 2nd Nizhny Novgorod Militia during the struggle of the Russian people against Polish and Swedish intervention in the early 17th century. The first City Manager of Nizhny Novgorod.
The Biographical Question
Kuzma Minin came from the large family of a Balakhna salt merchant named Mina Ankudinov. "Minin" was originally a patronymic and only later became a hereditary surname. A. Ya. Sadovsky has demonstrated that the name "Kuzma Zakhariev son Minin Sukhoruk," which appears in the historical literature, belongs to a different person. Breaking from the family trade, Minin moved to Nizhny Novgorod and became a posad townsman, trading in meat and fish. Elected zemsky (community) elder in September 1611, Minin called for the "gathering of fighting men," set the first example by donating a third of his own property to organize the Nizhny Novgorod Militia, and invited Prince Pozharsky to serve as chief military commander. He marched with the Militia all the way to Moscow and took part in the battle that ended with the expulsion of the Polish invaders. After Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov was elected tsar in 1613, Minin received the rank of dumniy dvoryanin (member of the Boyar council) and a hereditary estate granted "to his line in perpetuity." Minin lived in Moscow and carried out important assignments for the government and the tsar: he collected the pyatina (20 percent of property) from posad townspeople, replenishing the treasury exhausted by the Time of Troubles, and participated with other boyars in governing the state during the tsar's pilgrimages. In the winter of 1615, Tatars and Mari) rose up in revolt across the Volga Region. After the uprising was suppressed, Minin was sent to Kazan to investigate the causes of the unrest. He died on the return journey, never reaching Moscow. In 1826, a monument to Kuzma Minin and Prince Pozharsky, the work of sculptor I. P. Martos, was erected in Moscow on Red Square.
The Modern Theory of Minin's Origins
The claim of Tatar ancestry for Kuzma Minin was first made in 2002 by historian Vladimir Makhnach, who called him "a baptized Tatar, Kirisha Minnibayev."
Four years later, Ravil Gainutdin, chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, endorsed the theory of Minin's Tatar origins. At the same time, the thesis of the 1612 hero's possible Tatar nationality was voiced by the then-Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexy II. The Patriarch also believed that many Tatars served in the Minin and Pozharsky Militia, marching to liberate Moscow from the invaders.
Notably, none of Russia's official figures or historians responded at the time to Ravil Gainutdin's statement (silence gives consent?). Moreover, Putin indirectly confirmed the chief mufti's words when he remarked that "the process of liberating Russia began in Kazan."
The eminent Kazan philologist and academician A. Kh. Khalikov, in his major work "500 Russian Surnames of Bulgar-Tatar Origin," states unequivocally that the surname Minin derives from the name of the clan "min," which was a leading Kipchak-Horde clan. Professor R. Z. Yanguzin of Bashkir State University wrote at length about the "min" clan as one of the powerful and enduring formations of Turkic-Kipchak origin, from which distinguished Horde lineages descended. The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles records that people from this clan were called Minins. This is a fairly persuasive argument.
All that said, there is no reliable, well-grounded scholarly evidence that Kuzma Minin was in fact a Tatar. This is, at bottom, a theory that has a right to exist.
Background to Minin's Activities
The zemshchina system in Russia was established by Ivan the Terrible, who replaced the so-called kormlenie (the arbitrary taxation of the population by governors and district administrators) with a state-levied quit-rent. The "beloved" elder, elected at a public assembly (usually for one year), was primarily responsible for tax collection. In his struggle against the Boyar Duma, Ivan the Terrible favored appointing commoners as his governors — men distinguished by their zeal in service and absolute ruthlessness (in the mold of his cherished Malyuta Skuratov).
The position carried serious executive authority, but it was a public, unpaid office and was in itself, generally speaking, not particularly pleasant (not least because its fiscal functions tended to generate a certain attitude among the populace). On top of everything else came the organization of public works, fire inspection, the mustering of the people for communal labor, petitions on community matters, and so forth.
In short, the post was a burdensome one — especially given the absence of a salary. It was honorable, to be sure, but only to the extent it was measured out: even a surname was not due to Kuzma son of Minin, a posad townsman, any more than to a serf or a peasant. Karamzin, therefore, invented a surname for him "for the sake of respectability" in his History and even proclaimed him a "citizen" — though at that time, and even in Karamzin's own day, there was no citizenship in Russia, only absolute subjecthood to the Russian tsar, i.e., serfdom.
Being a shrewd, tough, and cunning man, Kuzma made profitable use of his office and proved highly adept at extracting money from those under his authority by the most ruthless means.
When the merchants and industrialists of Balakhna, Minin's hometown, came up short in their payments to him, Kuzma was incensed: "Your hands ought to be cut off!" — as the chroniclers write. After this warning, which had been borne out by action on more than one previous occasion, the merchants brought considerably more than had been asked.
Later, after his Militia captured Yaroslavl, Kuzma Minich even managed to have the Yaroslavl zemsky elder, the wealthy merchant Grigory Nikitnikov, arrested and stripped of his wealth. Other Yaroslavl fat-cats were likewise plundered "to their last thread."
This most suitable individual was thus recruited by Hermogen and Prince Pozharsky to raise funds, organize, and command the army. Pozharsky himself was unfit for command on account of his "feeble constitution and poor health." Furthermore, should things go wrong, the responsibility would not fall on the prince — Pozharsky was a calm man who preferred not to take risks.
Death in the Tsar's Service
In early February 1616, Kuzma Minich, accompanying the boyar Romodanovsky, arrived in Kazan, where informants reported that "the Cheremis had turned to banditry." Having concluded his investigation, Minin set out on the return journey, but fell suddenly ill along the way. As a contemporary chronicler writes: "And Kuzma Minin, while traveling to Moscow, was taken from this road."
Commemoration in Nizhny Novgorod
A number of streets in Nizhny Novgorod and the Nizhny Novgorod Region bear Minin's name. Minin Street in Nizhny Novgorod, for instance, runs through the very heart of the city and is considered the most "green" — because it was always regarded as an elite street and built up with care (trees were never felled), and today it is home to a multitude of universities, to which young "green" students hurry on foot every morning for their lectures.
There are also squares named after Minin in Nizhny Novgorod and the Nizhny Novgorod Region, where Monuments have been erected in honor of the hometown hero.
Interesting Facts
- The presumed date of the hero's death — May 21 by the new calendar — was observed throughout all of Russia from the 19th century onward (following the publication of Karamzin's work) until 1916 as "Citizen Minin Memorial Day." In all likelihood, the concept of "citizenship" (which did not exist then, nor later in monarchical Russia) was suggested to the historian Karamzin by the outcomes of the French Revolution; yet despite being a clear manifestation of freethinking (or, as such ideas were then known in Russia, "French delusions"), it was not banned by the tsar or the censors from the Work and thus "entered the popular consciousness."